Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Safety Standards

Mr. Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on safety standards in the aviation, railway and shipping industries; and if he will institute an inquiry into the safety aspects of public passenger transport.

The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Paul Channon): I regard safety as an overriding priority. Safety standards in the railway and shipping industries are the subject of continuous review by my Department. Safety in civil aviation is a matter for the Civil Aviation Authority. I see no need for a special inquiry.

Mr. Morgan: Does the Secretary of State agree that the public are demanding a thorough look at the way in which the pressure of continual competition is prejudicing public safety, particularly following the revelations in the Daily Mirror on Friday that only nine months after the original disaster another P and 0 ferry sailed with its bow doors open, precisely because of the pressure to make up time? That caused the original disaster, which was the worst, apart from the Titanic, in British maritime peacetime history. In the light of that revelation, does the Secretary of State agree that he must now look at this whole question? The public are demanding that he sets up a proper commission of inquiry.

Mr. Channon: I am conducting an inquiry into that important allegation, as is P and O. The hon. Gentleman rather overstates the matter when he says that the vessel put to sea. As I understand it, the ferry was moved from one berth to another inside the harbour.

Mr. Wilkinson: As aircraft cabin fires are by far the largest cause of death in otherwise survivable air accidents, has the CAA reported to my right hon. Friend on its assessment of the effectiveness of cabin sprinkler systems, which offer the best chance of saving life?

Mr. Channon: Water sprinkler systems are under investigation and tests have recently been carried out by the CAA. My hon. Friend raises an important matter and one on which I hope progress can be made.

Mr. Skinner: Will the Secretary of State also look into the fact that on 10 May 1988 the Pride of Bruges ferry did

not have sufficient crew on board with the proper marine evacuation certificates and had to use its catering staff to make up the number?

Mr. Channon: The Pride of Bruges must have had the right number of crew on board with sufficient qualifications, or my surveyors would not have allowed it to sail.

Dr. Michael Clark: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the increasing public anxiety about the number of near misses in the airways over the United Kingdom? Is he sure that air traffic controllers are properly trained? Does he feel that there should be more of them, or that different systems should be used to ensure the safety of our skies?

Mr. Channon: I disagree with my hon. Friend's analysis. If he looks at the figures he will see that the number of air misses is decreasing, not increasing, and that is an important point to bear in mind. The training of air traffic controllers is for the CAA, and the Select Committee on Transport is undertaking a full investigation of this and all relevant matters. Obviously, we shall wish to see what its report says. I have no evidence to suggest that the training of air traffic controllers is in any way inadequate.

Mr. Robert Hughes: It seems that almost everyone in the House and elsewhere is worried about ferry safety, except the Secretary of State, who is strangely reticent from time to time. Will he advise the House whether his Department sent a confidential report to the International Maritime Organisation? If so, will he publish it? Has he seen the other reports from an institute in Bradford about ferry safety and fatigue? Does he realise that the matter will get worse with commercial pressures, not better?

Mr. Channon: The hon. Gentleman's opening remarks were most unreasonable. He knows perfectly well that since I have been Secretary of State for Transport we have taken more measures on ferry safety than were taken in perhaps the previous generation. I resent and repudiate what he said on that score.
We have taken international action with the IMO to ensure that foreign and British ships coming into our ports are safe, and we are conducting a programme of research into all these matters and the allegations that have been made. It is regrettable that many Opposition Members make vague allegations, rather than specific ones, and never send us any evidence.

British Rail

Mr. Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects to meet the chairman of British Rail; and what subjects he expects to discuss.

Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects to meet the chairman of British Rail; and what subjects he expects to discuss.

Mr. Channon: I shall be meeting the chairman on 24 May to discuss matters of current interest.

Mr. Anderson: Is the Secretary of State aware of the conclusions of the "Better Rail" report published in March by National Economic Research Associates? Will he ensure that he discusses the findings of that report with the chairman, and will he commend the initiative of the rail


unions, which led to this report on punctuality and other matters that are vital to rail users? Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the findings of that report are injected into the current studies of rail services in London and the south-east?

Mr. Channon: There have been several recent reports, and the one to which the hon. Gentleman refers was one in which the National Union of Railwaymen played a prominent part. I look forward to discussing the report with the union in early June, and I shall certainly discuss it with the chairman of British Rail. The Government and British Rail share a common objective—better quality of service on the railways.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Will the Secretary of State give an undertaking to the chairman of British Rail that he will encourage inland customs clearance depots when the Channel tunnel is built so that freight traffic from the north can be customs-cleared in the area where it is manufactured and need not be trans-shipped at some point in the south-east?

Mr. Channon: I shall certainly discuss that subject with the chairman of British Rail. I am anxious that the benefits of the Channel tunnel should be felt in the north and in areas other than the south-east. Indeed, I am awaiting a special report by British Rail on rail links for the Channel tunnel. I hope to have it within the next month.

Mr. Soames: When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman of British Rail, will he ask him to institute an inquiry into the way in which British Rail makes such arbitrary changes to its timetables? Is he aware that in Balcombe in my constituency, where many people bought houses because of the ease of commuting to London, several timetable changes have greatly inconvenienced rail users?

Mr. Channon: My hon. Friend will appreciate that timetabling is entirely a matter for British Rail, but I shall draw the chairman's attention to that matter when I see him.

Mr. Raffan: To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), is my right hon. Friend aware of the serious concern in Wales about the fact that neither mid Wales nor the south of the Principality will benefit fully from the Channel tunnel unless there is a significant upgrading of the track from the south coast? This is an urgent matter. Will he do his utmost to bring pressure on British Rail to respond fully to the feelings in Wales and in the north, which it does not appear to do at present?

Mr. Channon: That is a little unfair. My hon. Friend knows that I am expecting a report from British Rail next month. I shall study it with interest and bear in mind what he said.

Mr. Cartwright: Will the British Rail report on improving access to the Channel tunnel from the north and the midlands include provision for a new rail crossing of the Thames to the east of London in view of the necessity for such a facility to improve access to the Channel tunnel?

Mr. Channon: It is difficult for me to say what is in the report when I have not seen it.

Mr. Tredinnick: When my right hon. Friend meets the chairman of British Rail, will he mention the Rugby road railway bridge at Hinckley in my constituency, which is causing great anxiety? British Rail proposes to raise it by only a few millimetres, yet it is the unanimous opinion of the district council that it should be raised by much more. Will my right hon. Friend consider the matter?

Mr. Channon: I shall ask the chairman of British Rail to look into that important matter.

Mr. Snape: Does the Secretary of State accept that there is widespread anxiety on both sides of the House about British Rail's future investment proposals in the light of the Channel tunnel? Without wishing to be castigated for being unduly alarmist, may I ask the Secretary of State to accept that projects in connection with the Channel tunnel should be outside the normal, strictly laid down investment criteria for British Rail—

Mr. Forth: Why?

Mr. Snape: Because even the most Neanderthal Conservative Back-Bench Member should appreciate that the true potential for the railways of the Channel tunnel will not be realised unless those facilities are in place before the tunnel opens.

Mr. Channon: The hon. Gentleman knows very well that the Government will support any worthwhile investment proposals that have a sound prospect of improving railway finances. I shall look at British Rail's proposals in that light. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should get too depressed, because we have not yet seen the report, let alone decided whether to accept it.

Emergency Exercise (Solent)

Mr. Barry Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the last major emergency exercise took place in the Solent.

The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): The last major emergency exercise was conducted on 6 November 1986.

Mr. Field: My hon. Friend will be aware of the considerable expertise gained by the land-based emergency services from the major exercises involving road, rail and air incidents. I understand that my hon. Friend's attention has been drawn to the fact that a large ship recently lost its main propulsion engines while manouevring in the Solent. Given the problems of real-time exercises involving large ships, will he mount an exercise to give the emergency services the necessary expertise to deal with a large-scale emergency?

Mr. Mitchell: There is a major joint emergency plan for the Southampton, Portsmouth and Isle of Wight area known as Solfire. It is well prepared—it was updated in February—it is exercised from time to time and it will be exercised again in October 1988. It falls under the command of the harbour master and I have every confidence in it.

Mr. Colvin: Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to congratulate Bristow Helicopters on tendering successfully for the air-sea rescue services for that area? Will he confirm that those services will be as good as, if not


better than, those previously supplied by the Ministry of Defence? When are those services likely to come into operation?

Mr. Mitchell: The new service, operated by Bristow Helicopters, will be better equipped for night and all-weather flying than ever before. I am happy to announce that the new civil search-and rescue helicopter took up its post at 8 pm last night and was in operation at 11.06 this morning, when it was scrambled to pick up a sailor from HMS Newcastle who had suspected appendicitis.

Taxi Drivers (Proficency Test)

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from Basildon seeking the introduction of a higher standard of driving proficiency test for taxi drivers; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. David Mitchell: None that I am aware of.

Mr. Amess: Will my hon. Friend recognise that some of my constituents not only feel that the present test is inadequate but are fed up with having to travel over 15 miles to the nearest test centre? Will he accept that the present test does not teach taxi drivers how to defend themselves against the increasing number of incidents of violence against the person? As two taxi drivers have recently been murdered and one seriously assaulted in Essex, will he please introduce an emergency service for taxi drivers?

Mr. Mitchell: Basildon is not a typical place, and we like to have typical places for driving test centres. It has an extensive one-way system, wide open junctions, well-planned roundabouts, few traffic lights and a pedestrianised town centre. There are four alternative test centres within 13 miles. My hon. Friend had an Adjournment debate on the safety of taxi drivers on 15 February. I announced an extension to allow taxi drivers to be represented on the standing panel on assaults on bus crews. It met on 5 May, and I much regret that taxi drivers were not represented.

Bus Deregulation

Mr. Brandon-Bravo: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his latest assessment of the effect of deregulation of buses under the Transport Act 1985 on the introduction of minibuses.

Mr. David Mitchell: There were about 40 places served by minibuses prior to the enactment of the Transport Act 1985, involving 400 vehicles. By the end of 1987 a further 5,200 minibuses were serving an additional 350 places. It can therefore be seen that the end of over-intensive regulation and local monopoly has brought visible benefits to the users of bus services.

Mr. Brandon-Bravo: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, which will be welcomed by all hon. Members. As to the term "minibus" in its wider sense—by that I mean anything up to 25 seats; some people refer to them as midibuses—will he comment on the obvious uses for such buses in rural areas and the benefits of having smaller vehicles operating within and linking council estates? We are experiencing an enormous growth in urban areas in this sector.

Mr. Mitchell: As operators must satisfy customers, rather than have an automatic monopoly, they are finding many innovative ways of doing so, and my hon. Friend drew attention to one of them—the operation of varying sizes of smaller buses, including midibuses, which operate on estates and call much closer to people's homes. They are much valued by the users.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: Does the Minister accept that the whole industry believes that the boom in minibuses is over and is going back to double-deckers? If public transport is so good following deregulation, why has the first independent survey concluded that the number of passengers carried has fallen by between 10 and 12·5 per cent. in metropolitan areas. which means a loss of 185 million journeys per year? Does that not show the failure of deregulation?

Mr. Mitchell: As the hon. Gentleman well knows, that decrease is associated with the reduction in the subsidising of fares in the metropolitan areas. As for his allegation that the growth in minibus use is tailing off, I must tell him that, if anything, interest seems to be growing. For instance, I am pleased to note that a new operator—Merry Hill Minibuses Limited—has started work in the Birmingham area.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my hon. Friend agree that, like the deregulation of coaches in 1980, the deregulation of local bus services has brought benefits to the public which outweigh the previous restrictive system in terms of more routes for passengers, greater flexibility, more jobs for people in the bus industry and more buses being built in this country?

Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend has hit the nail neatly on the head and I thank him for doing so.

City Commuter Services Group

Dr. Marek: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has received the report of the City Commuter Services Group; if he will discuss it with the chairman of British Rail; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. David Mitchell: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend has had several discussions with the chairman of British Rail about the need for new rail investment in London and the steps that British Rail is taking to improve reliability and quality.

Dr. Marek: If the Minister does not believe what he has been told by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, the National Union of Railwaymen and the Transport Users Consultative Committee about the state of the railways in the south-east, will he believe his friends in the City? Will he give a categorical assurance that when the Channel tunnel opens and international trains come to London, City commuters will in no way be inconvenienced by the extra traffic?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman has asked two questions. I recognise that in much of Network SouthEast the quality is not as good as it should be, although on many lines it is very good indeed and up to continental standards, and I pay tribute to the staff for what they are achieving. I shall shortly be meeting the director of the south-east sector to see what can be done about the


laggard lines. Very substantial investment is taking place in new rolling stock, signalling and track improvements designed to deal with the problems.
As for City commuters and Channel tunnel trains, I am expecting from British Rail early next month a report looking into that aspect over the next decade.

Mr. Simon Coombs: What discusions has my hon. Friend had with the chairman of British Rail about the principles of park and ride schemes? At the next meeting, will he raise with the chairman the social value of such schemes to medium-sized towns such as Swindon in trying to supplement the existing public transport infrastructure in those areas?

Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend makes a valuable and useful point. Park and ride schemes have not only social advantages but substantial commercial advantags. British Rail is alive to that and is looking for suitable sites. I am sure that if my hon. Friend has one in mind he will write to the chairman of British Rail.

Mr. Foulkes: Has the Minister seen the proposal to use alternative rail routes around London—through the midlands of England and over Settle and Carlisle, on which I understand he is to comment later, and up to the Kilmarnock line—as ideal routes for Channel tunnel traffic? Is he seriously considering that proposal? If so, will he consider siting one of the customs clearance depots at Kilmarnock, which is an ideal centre for the whole of the west of Scotland?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that British Rail is currently studing carefully the pattern of freight movement and where it will be brought together in all regions of the country. British Rail will be reporting on that in due course, and when it does I shall bear in mind the attractions of Kilmarnock. I shall be in Scotland later this week and will take the opportunity to discuss the matter with Scot Rail.

Mr. Jack: In addition to discussing matters concerning London, will my hon. Friend find time to convey to British Rail the thanks of those of us in the north-west for the improved timetable, the increased investment in traction units and the improved track maintenance facilities that are benefiting services on the west coast main line? Will he also take time to ask the chairman of British Rail to take into account the needs of tourism in the north-west in planning his future train capacity?

Mr. Mitchell: I shall be happy to draw the chairman's attention to those points, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for recognising British Rail's considerable efforts to improve the time-keeping and efficiency of the west coast main line, the benefits of which are now beginning to appear.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Will the Minister also discuss with the chairman the restoration of local railway facilities, which can be beneficial commercially and environmentally? Does he appreciate that many local authorities would like to go ahead with various schemes but are prevented from doing so by the Government's control of the purse strings?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman knows that British Rail has opened 50 new stations in recent years—including a number in Wales. If he knows of any commercially

beneficial services that could be run but are not being run, perhaps he will let British Rail know, as it is always on the lookout for commercially viable opportunities.

Road Maintenance Contracts

Mr. Forth: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what further measures his Department is taking to ensure better value for money in its awarding of contracts for road maintenance.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Peter Bottomley): New regulations have been made requiring more works to be put out to competitive tender. We are also extending lane rental contracts to a wider range of works. Better design standards should ensure that roads last longer.

Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful answer. On behalf of all M1 users, may I ask what he does to balance the concepts of value for money on the one hand and the time taken to effect repairs and maintenance on the other? For example, is there any possibility of doing more repairs at night to try to minimise the disruption caused on the M1—and no doubt by future repairs on other motorways?

Mr. Bottomley: We try to use the value of motorists' time as an incentive to those doing the work to complete it more rapidly. Lane rental has led to a 30 to 40 per cent. speeding up of the road works on the M1. I look forward to the day when we have caught up with the backlog that we inherited from the last Labour Government, and I hope that we never get such a backlog or such a Government again.

Mr. Crowther: What steps does the Minister take to penalise contractors who close lanes for unnecessarily long periods? Does he appreciate the frustration caused to drivers—as well as the losses to companies—when cars, buses and lorries are held up by the thousand for an hour or more by the closure of a lane in which there is no sign of any work taking place?

Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman has correctly analysed the whole purpose of the lane rental scheme. However, many of those who use our roads need to realise that with 120,000 vehicles a day passing through some contraflows it takes only one person to make a mistake for people to get killed. I pay tribute to the motorway maintenance people, who do much dangerous work while the rest of us scoot past pretending that they are not there.

Mr. John. M. Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way to get value for money from maintenance is to build motorways properly in the first place; for example by making the Oxford to Birmingham section of the M40 three lanes all the way?

Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend will want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for ensuring that motorways are now built to last for 40 years without serious work, as opposed to the 20-year period that we inherited from the last Labour Government.

London Underground (Safety)

Mr. Cohen: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he last met the board of London Regional Transport to discuss safety standards on London Underground.

Mr. Channon: I met the chairman and managing director of London Underground Limited on 18 April, when he briefed me on the action the Underground is taking following the fire at. King's Cross.

Mr. Cohen: The Secretary of State will have seen London Underground's "103 points for greater safety". While that contains many good points—begging the question why they were not implemented before—it leaves many problems unsolved. For example, instead of messing around trying to service wooden escalators, should not London Underground replace them, and should not the staff reductions that have made the Underground more dirty and dangerous be reversed immediately? Will the Minister answer the safety points and put up all the money to make the improvements to which I have referred?

Mr. Channon: I am anxious that the Underground should be safe and be seen to be safe. I welcome the 103 suggestions made by London Underground Ltd., covering removal of wooden cladding from escalators, installation of fire-resistant materials in stations and a host of other matters of which the House will be aware. I support what London Underground is doing. There is a question about staffing on the Order Paper, so I shall leave that matter. There is no question of expenditure being a constraint on the Underground carrying out its work. Safety is a top priority.

Mr. Dykes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we must be grateful to The Evening Standard for yet again, today and last week, highlighting the dangers revealed in the King's Cross inquiry concerning the regrettable inadequacy and old-fashioned nature of some of the fire prevention equipment on Underground stations, including those in the open air, which can be a greater fire hazard than we often imagine? The existence of a few dilapidated sand buckets at stations is no substitute for ensuring that there is proper fire prevention equipment at frequent intervals. Notwithstanding LRT's direct responsibility in these matters, will my right hon. Friend have further discussions with LRT on this important issue?

Mr. Channon: I am in continuous touch with LRT on this matter. There is to be a new post of senior fire officer in LUL. His first duty is to review the fire equipment and procedures. Under the present rules there is a daily check to ensure that there are extinguishers in each carriage, a fortnightly check by engineering staff and a full annual overhaul. I shall certainly draw London Underground's attention to my hon. Friend's remarks.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to confirm, or deny, that of the 103 points in the action plan none concerned a recommendation made to London Underground before the King's Cross fire and none was prevented from being implemented because of lack of finance?

Mr. Channon: I made it clear that LRT had taken action on several matters in advance of the investigation, including those that I have raised. There is no question of

the inquiry making recommendations yet. We shall have to see what recommendations to improve safety emerge from the King's Cross investigation. The House will want to take that matter extremely seriously. In the 12 years before the King's Cross fire there was only one accident involving a passenger fatality in some 35 billion passenger miles travelled. London Underground's safety record should be studied in its entirety.

King's Cross Fire (Inquiry)

Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what has been the cost to public funds so far of the inquiry into the King's Cross fire.

Mr. David Mitchell: The cost to my Department has so far been £498,000. In addition, the Treasury Solicitor is responsible for payment of fees to counsel for the investigation.

Mr. Banks: Why did the Secretary of State, through the Treasury Solicitor, refuse to cover the legal costs of the Association of London Authorities, which wished to give evidence to the inquiry? Was it because the ALA intended to raise some serious matters about safety and the Government's position in terms of the investment requirements that they impose on London Regional Transport? While the hon. Gentleman is considering the response to that part of the question, will he tell the House whether the Secretary of State intends to insist on a 7 per cent. return on capital investment from LRT—which effectively rules out many investment schemes with a direct safety aspect—or does he make a capital return calculation on dead bodies?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman must be well aware that those offensive remarks are wholly unjustified. I emphatically reject any suggestion that any question that should have been asked has not been asked. No one who has followed these matters can conceivably accuse counsel for the inquiry of having used kid gloves. In any case, the inspectors said that, on the evidence so far, the presence of the ALA has been of marginal assistance to the investigation. It did not appear to us, therefore, that it was warranted to incur those charges on the public purse.

London Underground (Staffing)

Ms. Ruddock: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has discussed with the chairman of London Regional Transport the programme of cuts in station staff now being implemented on the London Underground; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. David Mitchell: No. It is for the boards of London Regional Transport and London Underground Ltd. to decide staffing arrangements in the light of LRT's statutory duty to have due regard to efficiency, economy and safety of operation.

Ms. Ruddock: I thank the Minister for that reply. He must be aware that substantial staff cuts have occurred since the King's Cross fire disaster and that London Underground is embarking on a scheme whereby staff numbers will be reduced by one third by the 1990s. Does the Minister agree that he must be concerned about such matters? Surely the safety of the travelling public depends on staff in uniforms, rather than on machines on walls.

Mr. Mitchell: When we introduce new technology and modern working practices, we often do not need as many staff as there were before. Indeed, that is much of the justification for investment of that sort. Moreover, when new ticketing machines are introduced, fewer ticket-selling staff are needed. That has nothing to do with the safety of the Underground's operations. More effective use of staff, and ensuring that they are available to help the travelling public, are more important ways forward, and LUL is pursuing them.

Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend consider the safety of members of the public at London Underground stations and ascertain whether a member of staff or a member of the police force could constantly be at stations, so that the public, particularly the elderly and the young, would always he protected from violence?

Mr. Mitchell: Yes. Indeed, we have already given London Underground Ltd. £15 million for crime fighting. As a result of the activities that it has been pursuing, particularly in respect of alternative ways of policing the southern end of the Northern line, there has been a 25 per cent. reduction in muggings. I am sure that the House will welcome that.

Mr. Spearing: The Minister said that it is the duty of London Regional Transport to conduct its operations with due regard to economy and safety. Is it not a fact that there has been too much regard for economy and too little regard for safety, particularly in respect of personnel on station platforms, and, conceivably, deep-level tube crews? With the new financial objectives that the Secretary of State will give LRT after the King's Cross inquiry, will the Minister pay much more attention to balancing safety with economy, without prejudice to the latter?

Mr. Mitchell: I can only say that London Underground Ltd. and LRT have a statutory duty to have regard to safety. Nothing that we do will in any way damage or inhibit that—

Mr. Spearing: The Minister has done so already.

Mr. Tony Banks: The Minister has cut the subsidy.

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong if he is implying that the Government have in any way denied London Underground Ltd. the resources that it needs to fulfil its statutory duty in regard to safety.

Railway Safety

Mr. Snape: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will meet the chairman of British Rail to discuss improvements in railway safety in the light of the report by the railways inspecting officer on the Colwich junction collision in September 1986.

Mr. David Mitchell: No, Sir. The British Railways Board will be formally reporting to the Secretary of State on all aspects of the report in the near future.

Mr. Snape: It must be a matter of some concern that the passion for economy that pervades British Rail management can lead to a reduction in the number of locomotive inspectors who are available to travel on west coast main line trains. Is it not a worrying aspect of modern technology that a train travelling a few yards past a red signal can come into head-on collision with a train

travelling at 100 mph? Is it not a tribute to the skills of those who work in British Rail Engineering Ltd. that, despite the severity of the accident described in the report, not a single passenger lost his or her life?

Mr. Mitchell: I join the hon. Gentleman in paying full tribute to British Rail's improved standards in the rolling stock that it is manufacturing these days, compared with the designs of some years ago. Indeed, that is and should be a matter of some considerable pride to the railway supply industry. On the hon. Gentleman's point about locomotive inspectors, I am informed that the ratio of drivers to inspectors is lower in recent years, and, thus, efficiency of supervision has improved.

Mr. Wigley: When the Minister is discussing improvements in safety with the chairman of British Rail, will he ensure that some attention is given to the worries expressed on the Cambrian coast line about open and unmanned crossings, in view of the number of accidents that have occurred? Will he impress upon the chairman of BR the need to take into consideration not only railway matters but the feelings of local communities when such problems arise?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman will know that there are clear rules as to what form of level crossing is appropriate, and in which circumstances. Those rules have recently been revised in light of the Stott inquiry. I am also conscious of the fact that it is incumbent on BR to explain what it is doing to the people in the vicinity where change is proposed, because whenever change comes there is fear. I am satisfied that the arrangements are perfectly safe, but I am certain that the hon. Gentleman is right to want BR to explain that to the local people.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Family Court

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: To ask the Attorney-General what further representations the Lord Chancellor has received seeking the establishment of a family court; what response he has made; and if he will make a statement.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): The Lord Chancellor continues to receive representations from both hon. Members and others, and the Government are actively working on the issues comprehended by the concept of a family court. High priority is being given to the rationalisation of the law relating to the care and upbringing of children, which is an essential precursor to any reform of court structures.

Mrs. Bottomley: Bearing in mind that it is 16 years since Finer first raised its report, and recognising the Lord Chancellor's commitment to the rationalisation of family and child law, is my hon. and learned Friend aware that this is a necessary first step, not a final one? So long as many family cases are heard in courts that primarily exist for criminal purposes there is little likelihood of proper justice being done in such cases. When does the Lord Chancellor envisage responding officially to his own consultation document, to which many have made representations?

The Solicitor-General: I well understand the point that my hon. Friend is making. A response will be forthcoming. Some of the answers are to be found in the White Paper of January 1987. Once we have the rationalisation of the law well in train, we hope to come forward with a formal response, as my hon. Friend has requested.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Is the Solicitor-General aware that the profession that is generally most opposed to change, the legal profession, is virtually unanimous in the belief that a family court system is urgently required? Immediate attention should be given to the dual jurisdiction of magistrates' courts and to the hostility that county court matrimonial proceedings inevitably engender because of the adversarial system that is still retained in those proceedings.

The Solicitor-General: Yes. The rationalisation of the law will provide a helpful first step in the process, and then we can look to the court structures. When the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to unanimity within the legal profession, he may refer to unanimity over the belief that something should be done, but there is less unanimity within that profession about what should be done.

Mr. Sims: If it is the view of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor that changes in child care legislation should precede rather than follow changes to set up a family court, may we have an assurance that such changes, particularly legislation on child care, will form an essential part of the Queen's Speech later this year?

The Solicitor-General: I can say that they will be given high priority.

Prosecution Policy (Car Drivers)

Mr. Allen: To ask the Attorney-General what representations he has had on prosecution policy relating to deaths caused by car drivers; and if he will make a statement.

The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): Representations have been made to me by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and on behalf of the campaign against drinking and driving.

Mr. Allen: I thank the Attorney-General for that reply, and I also thank his staff for the sympathetic way in which they have handled the case with which, as the Attorney-General is aware, I am involved. Is he aware that there is a great legislative gap between death caused by reckless driving and driving without due care and attention? Is he also aware that the North committee on road traffic laws has reported to the Government on that omission? When does he believe that the Government will bring forward proposals to fill that gap, so that tragedies such as that which befell my constitutents, whose small daughter was killed by careless driving, may be remedied?

The Attorney-General: I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said. I express my thanks to him for the whole tenor of his approach to this sensitive and difficult matter, which causes much sadness and distress to the relatives of people killed in road accidents. The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies the difference between reckless and careless driving. He knows that an offence of

causing death by driving is an offence only where recklessness can be shown. He knows also that the prosecution service must be satisfied that there is a proper case.
The hon. Gentleman refers to the recommendation of the North committee that there should be an offence of causing death by bad driving while under the influence of alcohol. He will know that the decision to introduce that is for my right hon. Friends, not for me, but they will heed what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Lawrence: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the depth of feeling that exists, not only in families, but in constituencies countrywide, about the small sentences of fines and totting-up points imposed upon people who while under the influence of drink, have killed ordinary citizens. The depth of feeling is strong and the Government will have to do something about it. Is my right hon. and learned Friend satisfied that the Crown Prosecution Service is accepting fewer pleas of guilty to careless driving in such circumstances? Is he satisfied also that the North recommendation to uprate charges from careless driving to reckless driving in such a situation will be adequate to satisfy public demand?

The Attorney-General: I understand the depth of feeling that there is in the country, and I have said what I think I can sensibly say about the recommendation of the North committee. The judiciary must be responsible for deciding what penalties it shall impose out of the range that is made available by Parliament. However, my hon. and learned Friend will remember the guidelines laid down by the Lord Chief Justice regarding death caused through driving. I believe that sooner or later we shall arrive at a scale and practice that will meet the proper anxieties of all our constituents.

Mr. Fraser: Is the Attorney-General aware that a prosecution can pass without the family of the victim knowing what has happened? I have come across cases where the trial has been taking place on a plea of guilty without the family knowing about it. Will he ensure that the families of victims receive more consideration? When it is a borderline matter of whether to prosecute for careless driving or causing death by reckless driving, although the decision must rest with the prosecuting authorities, will they consult the families of the victims before coming to a conclusion?

The Attorney-General: I recognise what the hon. Gentleman has said. Of course, primarily it is the responsibility of the police to notify the families of victims of the outcome of prosecuting decisions and of cases. The Director of Public Prosecutions is alive to the need to treat this issue sensitively. Accordingly, local offices of the CPS will, on request, inform relatives of victims of the basis on which a decision was taken. The CPS is prepared also to offer the opportunity of a meeting with a senior member of the CPS staff. I cannot agree with the suggestion that the question whether to prosecute should rest with the opinion. of the relatives.

Extradition (Irish Republic)

Sir John Biggs-Davison: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on progress on extradition arrangements with the Irish Republic.

The Attorney-General: The Attorney-General for the Republic of Ireland and I had positive discussions in Dublin on 10 May. We discussed the basis upon which extradition from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom of suspected offenders can be undertaken in the light of changes now effected by the Republic's legislation. We have now reached a clear mutual understanding in respect of matters of concern and we confidently hope that in all proper cases extradition will now take place, in conformity with the new Irish legislation.

Sir John Biggs-Davison: Does my right hon. and learned Friend say that the Irish Republic is no longer treating the United Kingdom as the least-favoured nation for this purpose? Is not one of the consequences of the Anglo-Irish Agreement that undue pressure is constantly being put upon Her Majesty's Government, without any obligation to make concessions on the other side? Is it not time that the Agreement was replaced by an equal treaty?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend will allow me to comment that questions as to the merits of the agreement go rather wide of the original question. The British Government resisted the proposal to pass the new legislation, but it is now in place. Accordingly, we must recognise that any request for extradition from the Republic, if it is to succeed, must conform with the requirements which the Irish law imposes upon the Irish Attorney. It is in that regard that we had the discussions to which I referred, and it is in that context that we mutually hope, with confidence, that, in proper cases, extradition will now take place.

Mr. Winnick: Does not that understanding or agreement with Dublin give the lie to all those on the Government Benches who have argued that Dublin is not interested in reaching agreement on extraditing to Britain those who are suspected or accused of terrorism? Is it not a fact that there is now a serious responsibility on the Attorney-General himself, whatever views he may have of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to make sure that the agreement on extradition works?

The Attorney-General: All of us want to see that there is no hiding place for guilty offenders in either of our countries. I do not believe that it is fruitful to harp upon unhappy differences in the past, even in the recent past. We now have to see how we can best co-operate to ensure that, in conformity with our own legislation, guilty or properly suspected offenders are extradited to face justice.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Official Aid

Ms. Mowlam: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of gross national product was provided as official development assistance in 1987; and if he will make a statement about his policy on progress towards attaining the United Nations 0·7 per cent. of gross national product target in 1988–89.

Miss Joan Lestor: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of gross national product was provided as official development assistance in 1987; and if he will make a statement

about the Government's policy on progress towards attaining the United Nations 0·7 per cent. of gross national product target in 1988–89.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Chris Patten): We do not yet have the figure for 1987.
As to the attainment of the 0·7 per cent. United Nations target, I can only say that, like previous Administrations, the Government are not able to set a date for achieving this. But, as the House will know, the aid programme is now growing in real terms and its quality is high.

Ms. Mowlam: Can the Minister explain how he knows that the aid programme is now growing in real terms if, as he told us at the beginning of his answer, the figures are not available? Can he tell us why there is that delay? Surely he has the figures for the aid budget and for the GNP, and surely he can add the two together. Does the Minister have something to hide?

Mr. Patten: First, I am afraid that, in her engaging supplementary question, the hon. Lady was making confusion. We know the public expenditure figures, which have already been published. They show that our overseas aid programme is growing in real terms. To establish what proportion of GNP was represented by aid last year we have to take, first, the growth figures for last year and, secondly, the figures for official development assistance, which we announce to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. We shall do that, as usual, at the beginning of June. Because of the record growth rate last year, I would expect that the percentage figure for this year to be lower, even though the aid programme is growing in real terms.

Miss Lestor: May I equally engage the Minister in further deliberation on this matter? First, the figures were published in April and early May in the past. I am a little perturbed about the delay in publication. Is it because the revised figure that he gave last week in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) showed that the proportion given previously for last year had fallen rather than risen? Secondly, as the Minister has already announced the figures for the SADCC countries for 1987, is it not unbelievable that he is unable to do the arithmetic to which he has already referred and give us the figure that we are all seeking, so that we can begin to see what progress, if any, we are making towards the United Nations' target?

Mr. Patten: I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady is confusing the 1986 figure to which my hon. Friend referred in a reply to the House last week and the 1987 figure, which, as has been customary, will be provided for the OECD in early summer—in this case, in early June. I repeat what I said earlier to the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam)—perhaps the hon. Lady did not hear what I said—that I expect the figure to be lower for 1987 because the economic growth rate was 4·5 per cent. I imagine—this is one of the perverse consequences of using the percentage of GNP—that if the Labour party were in Government the economic growth rate would be lower and therefore, without changing our aid programme, the proportion of GNP taken by aid would be higher.

Mr. Lester: Does my hon. Friend, as one who, by voice and vote, has continued to press for an increase in the


overseas development budget, agree that when it comes to our principal policy of aiding the poorest people in the poorest countries, what is important is not always cash resources, but human resources—people who will work in those areas to achieve the change that we desire?

Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend is right. That is why I am pleased that we have made yet a further increase in the grant for the Voluntary Service Overseas and other organisations which send young and not so young volunteers to work in other countries. I should also draw attention to the fact that the last review by the OECD commended the quality of the British aid programme, and particularly the fact that we provide more aid to poorer countries than do most other OECD members.

Mr. Wells: Surely it is more important to target our aid so that it increases the value given to each country than to chase after a mythical United Nations figure of 0·7 per cent. Is it not the quality of the aid projects and what they achieve that is important, rather than a simple statistic? Is it not time to think of reversing the decline over the past 15 years in real terms of our aid programme in the Caribbean?

Mr. Patten: I wondered where that question was going to finish up, and I was not surprised when it was the Caribbean. It is extremely important that we have a good quality aid programme in the Caribbean. It is also important to provide Caribbean countries with the trade opportunities that they need—for example, for bananas and sugar. I was arguing that in a meeting between the ACP and EEC countries only last week. As to targets, my hon. Friend knows that we shall have exceeded the UN target for official and private flows in every year except one since 1979. Our total private investment in developing countries is almost as great as that of the rest of the European Community put together.

Ms. Armstrong: Is the Minister aware that this week marks Christian Aid week, when millions of British people will be reaffirming their commitment to development and growth in the developing world? Is he further aware that many are looking to the Government to exhibit a similar commitment to increasing opportunities in the Third world? Will the Government make an announcement this week which will support and encourage this voluntary giving?

Mr. Patten: I am happy to tell those people that this year the British Government will be spending £70 million more through our aid programme than last year and that in 1990–91 we shall be spending £115 million more than we are this year. I also refer those people to the extremely important initiatives that we have taken in the context of African debt.

Text books for Africa Project

Mr. Rhodes James: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Textbooks for Africa project.

Mr. Chris Patten: The Textbooks for Africa project aims to make available surplus O-level textbooks from Britain for secondary schools in Africa where they can be used to good effect. The project is being run by the British Council, the Ranfurly library service and Rotary International. I have agreed to provide up to £75,000 this year to the Ranfurly library service to help with the work load involved.

Mr. Rhodes James: Is my hon. Friend aware that this project has caught the imagination of a considerable number of people, incuding many of my constituents, who want to make a personal and private contribution to assisting education in Anglophone Africa? It is a project that fully deserves his support, for which we are grateful. I hope that, eventually, it will not be limited to Africa. Is there not an enormous potential in this idea, involving Churches, schools, local authorities, higher education, private individuals and Her Majesty's Government? Will my hon. Friend give a commitment that he will continue to give it his full support?

Mr. Patten: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for those remarks. I assure him that we shall continue to give this important project our full support. I have written to the local education authorities and to bodies representing independent schools. I am delighted that the response has been very encouraging. For example, we have heard from 44 local education authorities so far, and 41 have agreed to contribute books to the scheme.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations he has received regarding aid to sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr. Chris Patten: I have frequent discussions with representatives of sub-Saharan African countries. It is the subject of a large proportion of my mail bag.

Mr. Yeo: Despite the fact that Japan has significantly increased its aid budget, does my hon. Friend share my view that not enough Japanese aid goes to sub-Saharan Africa?

Mr. Patten: As my hon. Friend says, the Japanese Government have made a welcome increase in their aid programme, a point that Mr. Takeshita made during his visit the other day to the United Kingdom. I think that Japan would like to do more in Africa and I intend, I hope later this year, to go and talk to the Japanese Government about how we can, perhaps, do more with them in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, I should like the Japanese Government to put some of their funds through British non-governmental organisations such as the Save the Children Fund and Oxfam.

Settle-Carlisle Railway

The following questions stood upon the Order Paper.

Mr. Bob Cryer: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he now expects to make a decision on the future of the Settle-Carlisle railway.

Mr. David Curry: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the future of the Settle to Carlisle railway.

The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): The Settle-Carlisle line is about the most impressive example of our Victorian railway heritage. It runs through spectacular scenery and attracts tens of thousands of tourists each year. Many travel long distances simply to ride on it. Only about 20 per cent. of its usage is for local transport needs as opposed to leisure.
Although currently the line makes a substantial annual loss, I believe that it has considerable potential for development as a tourist attraction. This is a specialised activity for which, quite properly, British Rail is not particularly well qualified. It would be more appropriate for the private sector. The Transport Users Consultative Committee investigation has shown that hardship would be caused to a number of local users, but my right hon. Friend's view is that this would be largely met by the provision of guaranteed bus services. Accordingly, my right hon. Friend is minded, on the evidence before him, to consent to British Rail's proposal to cease operations. We have been advised to delay the final decision until the end of November to enable any new evidence to be taken into account. We plan to allow a further four months thereafter before British Rail operations cease, to enable any prospective future operators to complete their arrangements.
In connection with the prospects for a successor operation, British Rail tells me, first, that it is prepared to negotiate a dowry with a suitable private sector operator. Secondly, British Rail will help to end the uncertainty about the cost of restoring the Ribblehead viaduct by undertaking the repair of one of the 24 arches this year. Thirdly, English Heritage has generously offered £1 million towards the viaduct's repair. Fourthly, the local authorities offered to contribute £500,000 while withdrawing their previous annual support of £70,000 a year. Even that offer was hedged with restrictive conditions. Fifthly, a number of public and private bodies are offering support in cash or kind and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall list these in the Official Report. Financial assistance may also be available from the English Tourist Board and the Manpower Services Commission. I am hopeful that this will lead to a new future for the line, and I am ready to make my good offices available to assist in this direction.

Mr. Cryer: Will the Minister accept that his statement will be viewed with massive dismay by all sections of the community, including many Conservative voters? They will be dismayed that the Minister is making such an unimaginative and vicious decision for the people who use the line and the many millions who regard it with very great affection. Will he also accept that this campaign by

British Rail was begun with a programme of organised neglect that has led to the present position with the Ribblehead viaduct?
It is appalling that the Government should promise to make money available for a private sector solution when that money is not being made available to the best organisation to run it as part of the national network, namely, British Rail. The restoration and running of an 80-mile line is beyond the resources of a private sector solution. I speak as the founder of the Keighley and Worth Valley light railway back in 1961. This statement will be greeted with extensive dismay, and I regard it as a sad moment for the Settle-Carlisle line when the Minister was brought to the Dispatch Box to make such a heavy-handed and uncaring statement.

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman talks about massive dismay at British Rail ceasing to operate and the private sector coming in to run a successor operation. Even in his question just now, the hon. Gentleman added to his long and loud protestations about British Rail's stewardship. I do not see how he can at one and the same time complain about that stewardship and object to our finding specialists in tourism railways. The hon. Gentleman should realise that British Rail's priority is to invest in a modern railway system for the 21st century, not to provide pleasure rides for railway archaeologists.
The hon. Gentleman referred to preserved railways. Let me tell him that the North Yorks Moors railway, with only 18 miles of track, has as big a revenue as British Rail has on the whole of the Settle-Carlisle line—and, moreover, that the Severn railway has as much income as the whole of British Rail's running costs on the line.

Mr. Curry: My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) will join me in welcoming the delayed decision to take the line out of the hands of British Rail, which does not want it and which tries to forget it, and into the hands of private enterprise, which will give it the chance of a viable future oriented towards exploiting its tourist potential.
Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that a long-term future cannot lie with British Rail, which wants to get rid of the line, but must lie with those who are prepared to update it commercially and make the necessary investment? Will he elaborate on his remark that British Rail is prepared to give a dowry to a successor company? Will he say what support will be available, and guarantee that there will be an active Government campaign to attract money that will lead to a proper privatisation of the railway? Finally, will he ensure that his remarks about the needs of local inhabitants, who are in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, will be looked after genuinely and with a great deal of understanding?

Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend has made a number of cogent points about better exploitation of the opportunities on the line as a tourist line by those who specialise in that aspect, rather than by British Rail. In answer to his specific question about the dowry that I mentioned—I know that the House is interested in that—British Rail is anxious to cease its own operations on the route, but is prepared to negotiate a dowry to a suitable private sector operator running a preserved railway. This will reflect the transfer of assets and liabilities. I understand that the dowry will include the two rail tracks, signalling,


structures and land, and that British Rail would undertake to lift, remove and pay for continuously welded rail surplus to the private owner's operating requirements. That could amount to up to £850,000.
My hon. Friend also asked about the protection of local people's usage of the line. We intend to ask the TUCC to give us further advice on bus substitution routes and timing.

Mr. Eric Martlew: To say that I am disappointed by the statement is an understatement. Three generations of my family have driven engines on the line, so I hope that no one says that I do not know anything about it. Today's decision will mean job losses in my constituency. It will mean that the local authorities—I quote from a letter to the Minister from the chairman of the action committee, Mr. William Cameron—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not read, please.

Mr. Martlew: Does the Minister agree that the provision of local authority money was subject to the proviso that British Rail continued to run the line? The amount promised was £500,000, and that money will not be available to the private sector. Does the Minister agree that this is not a toy railway to be run by enthusiasts, but an integral part of the British Rail system, which should stay there? In my constituency, the Minister's name will go down in history alongside Lord Beeching's.

Mr. Mitchell: I am fascinated by what the hon. Gentleman says. I held three public meetings with the assistance of the local authorities in Settle, Appleby and Carlisle. At the meetings in the first two places there was a large attendance and at Carlisle nobody turned up.

Mr. Martlew: rose—

Mr. Mitchell: May I say that, with regard to the Cumbria contribution, it has offerd to pay approximately £166,000 per year for three years, but at the same time proposes to cancel the continuing £70,000 a year that it has provided in recent years. That is a very small net increase, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would wish to mislead people into thinking that it was as generous as it at first appeared.

Mr. Michael Jopling: Will the Minister understand that this is a most disappointing decision? Will he further understand that it would be churlish not to acknowledge his own personal efforts over many months to find a solution that would allow this glorious line to be kept open? To give us some idea of what the successor management has to cope with, can he tell us what is the current loss on the line and will he also say that his own Department will give assistance to potential operators? Does he not agree that what we need now is optimism and endeavour, not the gloomy approach of saying, "It can't be done," which we had from the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer)?

Mr. Mitchell: I understand my right hon. Friend's feelings and very much recognise them, having been on the line myself and seen how spectacular it is. I know the intensity of local loyalty to the line. However, at present, the revenue to British Rail is just under £1 million a year. British Rail says that the maximum that it could expect to achieve in future is between £1 million and £1·5 million. I

have asked it to recheck those figures during the summer. The operating costs are currently £2·7 million, but British Rail expects them to be reduced to £2·1 million, including the amortisation of the Ribblehead repair, through modernisation and replacement with different signalling and new Sprinters. Nevertheless, that means that the loss, even on the basis of modernisation and cutting costs, will be about £750,000 to £850,000 a year. On the other hand, I have to say to my right hon. Friend that since the Severn railway can achieve a revenue of £2 million a year, that puts into proportion the ability of the private sector to do rather better than the current operators.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I have used the line twice in the past couple of months, and whenever I have been on the line, particularly recently, it has been quite busy, in so far as it is part of Cumbria's industrial heritage. May I ask him a simple question? He says that, in choosing between the public and private sectors, it is more economic for the private sector to run the line. If private sector support cannot be found at the end of the day and it does not come forward to keep the line afloat, will the hon. Gentleman have a look at the matter again, or will he simply say that it must close, and that will be the end of it?

Mr. Mitchell: As I said to the House earlier, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make a final decision in the light of any new evidence at the end of November, but, meanwhile, he has made it clear that he is minded to accede to British Rail's request to close. The hon. Gentleman referred to the ridership. In 1983, it was 93,000 a year and in 1986–87 it was 300,000. British Rail says that that figure is now levelling off.
The hon. Gentleman says that I said that it was more economic for the private sector to run the line. When he checks Hansard, he will find that I did not say that. I am saying that the private sector has more specialised ability to run this type of operation as a tourist attraction than British Rail. That is demonstrated by the fact that a number of preserved railways have a far higher revenue than British Rail achieves on this famous line.

Mr. Leon Brittan: While I hope that a private sector solution can indeed be devised, may I ask my hon. Friend to agree that the £500,000 which local authorities were asked to contribute was on the footing that it would lead to the retention of the railway by British Rail? Does he agree that if a private sector solution is to be devised the long time spent on considering this matter could have been used to better effect in devising that rather than leaving it to this last-minute appeal? Does my hon. Friend further agree that although everyone will make every effort to bring about a private sector solution now, there will be deep disappointment that the matter has been handled in this way?

Mr. Mitchell: I understand my right hon. and learned Friend's disappointment. No undertaking was given to the local authorities about their contribution. They were told that it would weigh in the decision, and indeed it did. But it had a considerably reduced effect because, instead of offering £500,000, it turns out that the contribution is £166,000 a year for three years and that at the same time the local authorities intend to cut the regular contribution of £70,000 a year that they have been making for some years. Therefore, the net effect is a small addition. The


conditions included a 20-year guarantee, that this should be a one-off payment only, and that no further request for financial support should be made. Against that background, the contribution looks less generous than it at first appeared.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: Does the Minister accept that many people will be not only disappointed but appalled by many of his statements this afternoon? Will he give the assurance that, if the package is forced to go ahead as the only solution acceptable to the Government, British Rail will have the right to operate trains on that line, should the west coast line not be open? Will he further state what will happen if the private sector cannot deliver and maintain that line when the west coast line has a problem?

Mr. Mitchell: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should be appalled by anything I said this afternoon. Perhaps he is appalled at the revelation of the losses, which are probably larger than he hoped or imagined. British Rail would have to negotiate the use of the line for diversionary purposes with the new operator of the line. The route would have to be surveyed to ensure that British Rail was satisfied with it for its rolling stock. Those are commercial matters for negotiation between the parties.

Mr. Michael Jack: Can my hon. Friend tell me what contribution Lancashire county council has offered to make to this initiative? Does he expect that private individuals will have an opportunity to subscribe to a potential new operating company under these proposals? Is this opportunity for private capital to run such a rail service a precursor of private capital in other spheres of the Department of Transport?

Mr. Mitchell: On the latter point, one is increasingly finding that the private sector can finance the expansion of various forms of rail transport, particularly light rail which is being developed in several parts. I cannot be exactly precise, but I understand that Lancashire county council is paying one third of the £166,000 a year—between £50,000 and £60,000.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Minister knows that from the beginning this campaign has been led by people in the area who want to retain a railway service, not a Toy Town railway. He will know that the petition I brought on their behalf referred specifically to the fact that it is not that British Rail cannot run the service but that it has deliberately decided that it does not wish to. To suggest that replacing the service with buses will somehow provide adequate cover for local people is a disgrace for a Minister of Public Transport.

Mr. Mitchell: We are seeking further advice from the TUCC about appropriate bus substitution. It is anticipated that there will be a bus from Giggleswick for the people of Settle to go to Carlisle. I have walked to Giggleswick from Settle and it is not an arduous journey. From Appleby to Carlisle it is envisaged that there will be a bus to Penrith and the journey will take the same length of time. I accept that Settle to Appleby will be a considerably longer journey than otherwise, but since on average only about half a dozen people make that journey

for local purposes, as opposed to tourism, the hon. Lady may not feel that it is necessary to spend £750,000 on their behalf.

Mr. Terrence Higgins: Is the Minister aware that his efforts to consider the matter with first-hand experience are very much welcomed? We must hope that this proposal is successful. We should also recognise that British Rail must allocate its resources to areas which produce the greatest return to the public.

Mr. Mitchell: My right hon. Friend is correct. British Rail has embarked on the largest modernisation programme since switching from steam to diesel. It is not part of British Rail's remit to organise pleasure rides for people who travel on the line only to enjoy the scenery.

Dr. John Marek: Will the Minister stop all this talk about Toy Town railways and pleasure trips? He must know that the line provides necessary local public transport and that it has the potential to provide transport from the cities of the east midlands and Yorkshire to the heartland of industrial Scotland. If all the goodies and the extra finances that have been provided to try to flog the line off to some capitalist to make a profit had been given instead to British Rail, does the Minister believe that British Rail would have changed its mind and run the railway itself?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman should remember that Cumbria's own figures show that more than 60 per cent. of people use the line purely for the pleasure of going on it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that he expects the line to be so profitable in the private sector that the various gentlemen whom he thought would make profits out of it will appear. I hope that his confidence will be fully justified and that those profits will guarantee the future of the line well into the next century.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: My hon. Friend will be aware that many of my constituents are extremely interested in the railway and will agree wholeheartedly that there is substantial scope for its redevelopment. If in November, or the four months thereafter, a deal looks even remotely in the offing, may I take it from my hon. Friend's answers that matters will be delayed to enable the deal to be stitched up?

Mr. Mitchell: I have told the House what my right hon. Friend is minded to do. We shall have to see the position when we reach that stage, but there have already been large contributions from the private sector and from the public sector, too. English Heritage will give £1 million. Grand Metropolitan is prepared to put up £25,000 as pump-priming and £100,000 if it is matched by a dozen or so others. Scottish and Newcastle Breweries will also contribute, as will a range of firms including British Aggregates Construction Materials Industry and the Federation of Resin Formulators and Applicators. The House should pay tribute to those private sector firms, which have nothing to gain but which are prepared to put themselves out to provide materials either at cost or at lower prices, and even to provide labour to help to save the Ribblehead viaduct, to which so many hon. Members of the House are attached.

Mr. Peter Snape: Is the Minister aware that this decision will be seen by thousands of British people as an act of political vandalism? Will he


confirm that the Settle-arlisle line is the least loss-aking line of the group known as "other provincial services"; that the sum of £750,000 would not buy more than 100 yards of motorway; that to talk about "railway archaeologists" in relation to the thousands of people who protested about the proposed closure of the line is downright insulting; that to take £1 million from the budget of English Heritage when his Department will not cough up £750,000 is another act of political vandalism for which he and the Secretary of State will be remembered; and that this parsimonious, niggardly and short-ighted decision represents a victory for the Secretary of State for the Environment over the Secretary of State for Transport?The Minister should be aware, knowing the character of the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), how much the right hon. Gentleman's political victories will cost the Conservative party over the next few years.

Mr. Mitchell: I am not quite sure of the relevance of most of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I thought that he was a friend of British Rail, that he wanted it to enter the 21st century with massive investment in modernisation and not try to run a tourist attraction that makes a loss year by year. Losses on the line are such that, during the non-ourist season, it would pay British Rail to hand a 20 quid note to each person and ask them not to travel on the train.

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the wretchedly unsatisfactory nature of the answer to my question, I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Following iv the list of public and private bodies:
English Heritage has offered up to £1 million or 40 per cent. of eligible costs—whichever is the less—for the restoration of Ribblehead viaduct subject to certain conditions, notably that the line should stay open to provide a means of access to towns of historic significance.
Grand Metroplitan is willing to help initiate any project associated with the line which promotes both employment and tourism opportunities. Grand Met has offered to contribute up to £25,000 as pump-priming for such a project, but is prepared to raise that to £100,000 should the offer be matched by a dozen or so other private sector companies.
Scottish &amp; Newcastle Breweries plc has indicated that it would be prepared to consider a sponsorship arrangement, worth up to £25,000, for the branding of either a viewing and restaurant car or a refreshment car.

The following commercial firms, many of them under the auspices of the British Aggregate Construction Materials Industries and the Federation of Resin Formulators arid Applicators, have offered to supply materials (and, in some cases, labour) at reduced cost to help with the restoration of Ribblehead viaduct:

BACMI Members:
ARC Ltd., Chipping Sodbury, Avon
Tilcon Ltd., Knaresborough, North Yorkshire
Hargreaves Quarries Ltd.,Pickering, North Yorkshire
Castle Cement Ltd., Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

FeRFA Members
Advanced Sealants Ltd., Wilton, Wiltshire
V. A. Crookes Ltd., Sheffield
Environmental and Structural Maintenance Ltd., Andover, Hampshire
John Lelliott Structural Renovations Ltd., Raynes Park, Surrey
Protective Services Contracts Ltd., Glasgow
Prodorite Ltd., Wednesbury, West Midlands
R. B. R. Contract Services Ltd., Wooburn Green, Buckingharnshire
Structoplast Contracts Ltd., Leatherhead, Surrey
Balvac Whitley Moran Ltd., Liverpool
Boston Chemical Co. Ltd., Wetherby, West Yorkshire
FEB (Great Britain) Ltd., Manchester
Protective Materials Ltd., Leatherhead, Surrey
Resdev Ltd., Elland, West Yorkshire
SBD Construction Products Ltd., Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire
Sealocrete Ltd., Southampton

Other Firms
BarFab Reinforcement, Smethwick, West Midlands
British Steel Corporation (General Steels) Redcar, Cleveland
Servicised Ltd., Slough, Berkshire

The Rural Development Commission is prepared to consider an application for a grant of up to £100,000 from the rural transport development fund for the restoration of Ribblehead viaduct. This offer has been made because the commission believe that continued rail services will afford benefits to the rural communities. The commission will also consider on their merits further projects which could benefit the social and economic development of the area.

The Countryside Commission considers that the line can improve access to the countryside and bring significant benefits to the rural communities. It is in principle prepared to make grants up to £100,000 to match capital investment in tourism and related projects by other bodies, or to support marketing initiatives and the provision of new passenger services on the line.

Broadcasting Standards Council

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the Broadcasting Standards Council.
I am glad to tell the House that Sir William Rees-Mogg has agreed to serve as the first chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Tory apparatchik.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Hurd: The unique power of the broadcasting media to shape perceptions and their influence over attitudes and actions are widely recognised. We drew attention in our election manifesto to public concern over the display of violence and sex on television. In line with that commitment, we now propose, by setting up the new council, to srengthen standards in this sector and to reinforce the work of the individual broadcasting regulatory bodies.
The Government will put forward proposals to the House for placing the new Broadcasting Standards Council on a statutory basis. We intend that it should be set up soon and function for a time on a non-statutory basis. During this settling-in period, it will, first, draw up, in consultation with the broadcasting authorities and the other responsible bodies in broadcasting, cable and video, a code on the portrayal of violence and sex and standards of taste and decency.
Secondly, it will monitor and report on the portrayal of violence and sex, and standards of taste and decency in television and radio programmes received in the United Kingdom and in video works.
Thirdly, it will receive, consider and make findings on complaints and comments from indivuiduals and organisations on matters within its competence and ensure that such findings are effectively publicised.
Fourthly, it will undertake research on matters such as the nature and effects on attitudes and behaviour of the portrayal of violence and sex in television and radio programmes and in video works. Fifthly, it will prepare an annual report, which the Home Secretary will lay before Parliament and publish.
In addition, the Government will consult the council on the implications, for the matters within its remit, of the negotiations under way in Europe for the regulation of transfrontier broadcasting, and on the implementation of the result of those negotiations.
Sir William Rees-Mogg has suggested that the council might function best if it were to preview some imported fictional material before it is broadcast. I have therefore asked him to explore, with the relevant broadcasting bodies during this pre-statutory period, an arrangement under which they would make available to the council, before transmission, fictional material acquired from abroad that is believed to give rise to special concern, and on which accordingly they would find the council's prior comments helpful.
Sir William will discuss with the broadcasting authorities how best they should publicise the council's views on programmes and programme standards. The BBC, IBA, Welsh Fourth Channel Authority and other

relevant regulatory authorities will remain responsible for exercising their powers and duties under existing provisions, as will the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.
The Government will frame their proposals for the statutory powers of the new council in the light of progress made meanwhile in making sensible arrangements for co-operation between the new council and the broadcasting authorities.
The administrative arrangements for the new council are well in hand. Further details, including its membership, will be announced as soon as possible.

Mr. Roy Hattersley: Is the Home Secretary aware that, although his statement was clearly intended to be bland, it will cause great disquiet among those who believe in the freedom of broadcasting and broadcasters? No one seriously believes that the new council will simply be the combination of think tank and complaints box promised in the Tory manifesto. It is the thin end of a highly authoritarian wedge and we shall continue to resist every attempt by the Government to interfere with free broadcasting in a free society.
Is the Home Secretary aware that the power to vet and veto individual programmes which he has trailed today as the wish of Sir William Rees-Mogg is wholly unacceptable? The idea of a further regulatory body superimposed on the BBC and IBA, which act under legislation and charter to observe acceptable standards, is simultaneously dangerous and absurd. The additional power to regulate gives the Government the chance to impose their wishes on broadcasting. That is an unacceptable practice in a free society.
I warn the Home Secretary that fears about his real intentions will be heightened by the appointment as chairman of Sir William Rees-Mogg. Sir William played an ignoble part in the suppression of the "Real Lives" programme when he was vice-chairman of the BBC, and he is one of the few people of any standing to have publicly condemned a television programme—"Airbase"—and then gone on to admit that he had not seen it. Moreover, he has openly—most recently yesterday afternoon with the Daily Mail—demanded the right as chairman of the new council to vet and veto individual broadcasts. He is a wholly unsuitable chairman. He does not have the support of the Opposition and he will not have the confidence of the broadcasters. Only a weak Minister would have appointed a chairman who first announced his terms of reference in public and now proposes to negotiate them after his appointment has been announced to the House today.
I emphasise once again that to give the Broadcasting Standards Council regulatory powers is wholly unacceptable to Opposition and broadcasters alike. It will be resisted in the House and I believe that broadcasters will not co-operate until the legislation has passed through all its stages in the Commons and in the House of Lords.
In the light of that, I wish to ask the Home Secretary five specific questions. First, will he give a categorical assurance, without any doubt or attempt to equivocate, that the BSC will cover only matters relating to sex and violence—that is, matters of so-called taste and not matters of politics? Representatives of the Conservative Back-Bench broadcasting committee said on television yesterday that the powers of the council must be extended to other matters in addition to sex and violence—[HON.
MEMBERS: "Hear, Hear!"] I want an assurance that the Home Secretary will not succumb to the "Hear, Hears" that we have just heard from Conservatives below the Gangway.
Secondly, what powers will the councl have over video sales and the commercial use of videos? For instance, is Sir William to spend his evenings in assorted hotel bedrooms deciding what is appropriate for broadcasting in that arena, or is commercial video to be excluded from the terms of reference?
Thirdly, how will the council's judgment affect the broadcasting of current affairs? If it is concerned with violence, will Sir William have a view about what can be broadcast concerning murder and mayhem in Belfast and Beirut?
Fourthly, will the Home Secretary give examples of the kind of programme that concerns him? For his announcement to have any veracity or honesty, he must say what it is that concerns him. We must have examples of the type of programme that it is intended that Sir William should suppress.
Finally, is not the truth of the matter that the programmes to which the Government object are concerned not with sex or violence or taste but with the Government's political inconvenience? We believe that the new body will eventually he expanded to inhibit those who dare to criticise the present Administration.

Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) spent a good deal of last week in the media and in his letter to me stirring up confusion on this subject, and it is clear from his questions that he has managed thoroughly to confuse himself. He has tried to invent a link between the straightforward carrying out of an election manifesto pledge and what he erroneously believes to be the Government's intention to impose their wishes on broadcasting. His attempt has entirely failed, as the outcome will show.
The right hon. Gentleman's criticisms, following those of one or two broadcasters, of Sir William Rees-Mogg personally are grossly unjust. Had we selected a person who knew nothing whatever about broadcasting or about the creative life of this country—[HON. MEMBERS: "You have"]—the right hon. Gentleman would have had some grounds for irritation and criticism. It is clear that the main criticism of my choice for this appointment is that, as a former editor of The Times, a former vice-chairman of the BBC and actual chairman of the Arts Council, Sir William knows a great deal about the matters in hand. I should have thought that that was a qualification rather than a disqualification.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook asked a number of specific questions. I confirm, as our manifesto and all that we have said on the subject made clear, that the setting up of the Broadcasting Standards Council has nothing to do with politics—[Laughter.]—or political bias and nothing to do with the treatment of political matters by the broadcasters.

Mr. David Winnick: Of course not.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no point in shouting from a sedentary position. It takes up time and it does not help.

Mr. Hurd: Some of my hon. Friends will suggest that the council should concern itself with such matters and

there will be plenty of time to discuss those suggestions—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—but that is not the Government's intention.
As regards video, contrary to what has appeared in parts of the press, we have had considerable discussion with the broadcasters about the scope of the new council. One of the points that the broadcasters made most insistently was that the realm of video must be within the council's remit if it is to deal effectively with the matters with which it is supposed to deal. As my statement today made clear, the council will be concerned with the portrayal of sex and violence.
In answer to the right hon. Gentleman's last point, in my view two of the biggest social changes in this country in recent years have been the immense increase in the amount of time that people, especially young people, spend watching the television and, secondly, a considerable increase in violence. Research on the subject is inconclusive. That is why one of the points with which the council will deal is the provision of research. Nevertheless, even if a link between those two major changes in society—the growth of television viewing and the increase in violence—exists only in a small number of cases, we must pay proper attention to it and strengthen the means by which we deal with it. The creation of the Broadcasting Standards Council has that objective in mind.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is a private Members' day and that a large number of Back Benchers wish to take part in the subsequent debate.

Mr. Tony Banks: This is a very important issue.

Mr. Speaker: It is indeed, but it will be bad luck for Back Benchers if they cannot be called in the next debate. I ask hon. Members to put single questions and to be brief.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Does my right hon. Friend agree that none of this would have been necessary if the broadcasting authorities had exercised the necessary restraint and control over the unacceptable amount of television violence and sex to which society has been treated in recent years?

Mr. Hurd: The broadcasting authorities do pay attention to this. As we said in our manifesto, we believe that responsibility for enforcing broadcasting standards must rest with the broadcasting authorities, but they need reinforcing by the setting up of the Broadcasting Standards Council.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the Home Secretary satisfied that the council will in no way conflict with the existing role of the BBC's governors and the members of the IBA? What real consultation did he have with the BBC and the IBA before reaching his decision and making his announcement today?

Mr. Hurd: In October last year, we undertook considerable consultation with all the broadcasting authorities, and I have a wedge of correspondence resulting from that. Last week, we went over the ground with them again and discussed the contents of the statement. Those discussions will be carried forward by the chairman.

Sir Peter Hordern: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Broadcasting Complaints Commission meets at lengthy intervals and on rare occasions and that it sometimes takes many months for a complaint to be dealt with properly and findings produced? In his review of the commission's work, could he also tighten up the arrangements for broadcasting complaints?

Mr. Hurd: I note what my hon. Friend says. As he knows, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission has a narrow remit and, on the whole, Lady Anglesey and her colleagues perform it well. During the pre-statutory period, they will continue to do their job and no doubt they will take note of my hon Friend's remarks. One of the things that need to be considered before drafting legislation is how the Broadcasting Complaints Commission could be subsumed in the new standards council.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: If the Home Secretary takes the view that there is a need to tackle sex and violence further, why has he thought it appropriate to create a new quango rather than examining the regulation or operation of the two authorities themselves? What does he intend to do to secure the freedom of broadcasting of current events—a point to which he has not yet addressed himself?

Mr. Hurd: I believe that the second point is the responsibility of the broadcasting authorities and it would be dangerous territory for any Government of any party to enter. That is why I replied as I did to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). As the hon. Gentleman knows, over the past year the broadcasting authorities have examined their own arrangements and codes for dealing with violence in particular—partly in response to two rounds of representations from me. For the reasons that I have given, I believe that there is a need for a clearer focus for public concern on these matters than the existing arrangements allow, and the Broadcasting Standards Council will provide that.

Mr. John Gorst: I suggest to my right hon. Friend that what is needed is not so much a Pope who will issue encyclicals and offer prayers as an ombudsman who can rectify grievances both before and after. Why has my right hon. Friend confined himself to standards relating solely to sex and violence when standards of truth and accuracy are equally matters of concern to the public?

Mr. Hurd: I know that that is my hon. Friend's view and, as I have said, he will have full opportunities to develop it. The BCC deals with accuracy and fairness as they relate to individuals and their grievances. For the reasons that we gave in our manifesto and during the election campaign, we believe that the new standards council ought to concentrate on excessive sex and violence and their portrayal.

Mr. Norman Buchan: Does not this announcement come at the end of a lengthy period of attack and assault on public service broadcasting? Is not this an appalling step to take? Could not the Home Secretary have asked the Prime Minister to do her own dirty work? Clearly, she is not concerned with standards, as she has been forcing upon us deregulation in both television and radio. For radio, light or no regulation is

recommended. Is not the truth that the Government are not concerned with standards at all? They are worried only about what they would regard as a dirty play; under the Prime Minister's proposals, all the rest can be pap. Is not that combination of the patrician and the philistine appalling for standards in this country? Is it not the case that under this Government censorship has increased, is increasing and should be abolished?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman has the balance completely wrong. In a whole range of policy work, we are trying to combine and reconcile the deregulation of radio and television and enlargement of choice for the individual—for the hon. Gentleman's constituents—that modern technology now makes possible with the maintenance of the standards that we expect in this country. It is a huge task—international as well as national. Today's ann-
ouncement is part of that, but throughout our policy work we are concentrating on those two objectives, and the hon. Gentleman should recognise that they can indeed be reconciled.

Mr. Richard Shepherd: Is it not a little curious that, some years after giving up pre-censorship of the London theatre by the Lord Chamberlain's office, we are to enter into similar arrangements for broadcasting? Will my right hon. Friend treat very cautiously Sir William's request for prior censorship of programmes, because it would undermine the role with which the IBA and the BBC governors are charged?

Mr. Hurd: I understand my hon. Friend's point. If he reads my statement carefully he will see that I am proceeding cautiously—indeed, step by step. I think that it is reasonable that Sir William should discuss with the broadcasting authorities the question whether it would be sensible, as I personally believe it would, to have some arrangements whereby the new Broadcasting Standards Council could preview certain types of material—particularly imported material. It could then make a finding—not act as a censor—at the same time as a broadcast, rather than afterwards.

Mr. Bruce Grocott: Can the Home Secretary confirm that, under the present arrangements, anyone making a controversial programme in independent television is bound to consult the Independent Broadcasting Authority? Will he further confirm that the IBA has very carefully laid-down and detailed programme guidelines, contained in a lengthy booklet? Will he explain how the new arrangement will work if the Broadcasting Standards Council gives one piece of advice to the producer of an independent television programme and the IBA gives another? Which advice should the producer take?

Mr. Hurd: That is not quite the position. It is perfectly true that the IBA has a tradition of previewing, which the governors of the BBC do not have. That is one of the complications in the arrangements. For the great majority of material, the new body will receive complaints and comments after a broadcast, as the public will not be aware of the contents of a broadcast until after it has been transmitted. It will review those comments and discuss them with the broadcasters and then make a finding. One aspect that will need to be discussed during the settlingin period—and eventually settled by this House in legislation


—is how the finding is to be effectively publicised. Presumably, it will be in the same slot as the original broadcast.

Mr. Anthony Nelson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will be very warmly welcomed? Does he agree that nothing could be more out of touch with the mood of the public than the defence by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) of television companies' right to depict gratuitous and repulsive scenes of violence? Will he bear in mind that it is important that the new body should not act as a cushion against complaints for the broadcasting companies and that the test will lie in the measures and in the new body's powers to enforce its views as well as speaking out when it regards material as unacceptable?

Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend's last point. His first remark was also true. It would be a mistake for the House to underestimate the deep concern felt on this subject, particularly by parents. It may not be felt by huge numbers, but it is very deep. I recall a meeting in my constituency a few years back at which parents expressed their anxiety in passionate terms. If, through the council, we can provide such people with a focus for their anxieties and an assurance that they will be properly followed up, it will be a considerable advance.

Mr. Ted Rowlands: Who is more out of touch with public taste than Sir William Rees-Mogg and establishment retreads? Does he know much about young people's attitudes to violence and sex? Given that the Home Secretary has made this decision, will there be a regional dimension to the Broadcasting Standards Council? Will he reassure us on the weasel words about the arrangement that Sir William Rees-Mogg will make with the IBA and the BBC authorities? Can we be sure that it will not be one in which he will intrude on their regulatory responsibilities?

Mr. Hurd: Those involved in the discussions that are now to take place will try to illuminate the last point. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is so patronising about Sir William Rees-Mogg, whose qualifications for holding views and handling these matters sensibly are very great indeed. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman takes the opposite view. We shall announce to the House the membership of the council. I am very conscious of the Welsh aspect of all broadcasting matters; my predecessor but one taught me that in my cradle, from his own experience. I do not want a council that is regionally balanced or has representatives from one part of the community rather than another. We shall seek, in general, a balance. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be less patronising about the chairman when he sees the results.

Sir Trevor Skeet: I welcome the appointment of Sir William Rees-Mogg, largely because of his experience in advertising and the media. There is, however, one difficulty—three bodies will have overlapping powers. Will my right hon. Friend be careful with the guidelines and ensure that they are published before any decisions are taken, so that Sir William has the clearest view of the line that he should take in appropriate cases?

Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend. It is sensible that there should be this period when these matters are sensibly discussed before the House is asked to take a

decision on the statutory consequences. When we frame our proposals for legislation, we shall take account of the progress that has been made in the discussions between those bodies.

Mr. Brian Wilson: If obscenity is in the groin of the beholder, what possible qualification does Sir William Rees-Mogg have to act as the nation's groin? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the figure of the high Tory sheriff of Somerset sitting in a darkened room with a copy of The Times in his lap and watching French movies will rapidly become as big a figure of national ridicule as the Lord Chancellor once was? In the interests of the right hon. Gentleman's formerly liberal reputation, will he retreat from this nonsense, which is a censorious and dangerous path?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman misses the point, which is that this body will act as a focus for public concern on these matters—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman, in the intervals of his sniggering, believes that no parent in his constituency is seriously worried about the portrayal of violence on television and does not want a better way than exists at present for expressing concern, he is grievously out of touch.

Mr. Michael Fallon: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement. Will the criterion of decency include the responsibility of programme makers in respect of legal proceedings?

Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend is tempting the new council down a dangerous path. I would much rather it concentrated on matters where public concern was greatest, and the discussions will concern those aspects.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: Although there may well be justifiable concern about the standards of certain television programmes, bearing in mind the expressed view of the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) and the believed views of the Prime Minister, does the Home Secretary agree that this is not the way to tackle the matter? Surely it must be tackled by cross-party and cross-House agreement. Are there not different issues with regard to videos? Will the council have physical or legal control over what might appear via satellite?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman confuses two things. It is perfectly reasonable for my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), as chairman of the Conservative Party, or for Ministers or shadow Ministers, to express strong views about particular broadcasts. There is nothing reprehensible about that. Broadcasters and journalists throughout the media express strong views about us. There is no reason why that should not be a two-way business. That process, which occurs all the time, has nothing to do with the Broadcasting Standards Council.
I have dealt already with the point about videos. There is nothing in the proposal that will alter the "Bright Act"—the Video Recordings Act 1984—on the control of video. Given the amount of time that viewers spend watching video, as opposed to broadcasting, the new Broadcasting Standards Council must be able to take account of the content and standards of video when making its report or conducting its research, and that will happen.
The hon. Gentleman raised another question, which I have forgotten—

Mr. Spearing: Satellite.

Mr. Hurd: I have mentioned the international dimension. We are negotiating in Strasbourg and discussing in Brussels the possibilities of a Council of Europe treaty and a Community directive to deal with these matters in so far as they originated in Europe, and that is very important. In my statement, I dealt with the relationship between that process and the new council.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I again remind the House that this is a private Members' day. I shall call two hon. Members from each side and then the Opposition Front-Bench Spokesman; then we must move on. There will be other opportunities to discuss this matter.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: I reassure my hon. Friend that the great majority of ordinary households will warmly welcome his decision, not as an attack on freedom of expression but as a check on over-mighty broadcasters, in the hope that the council can hold broadcasters to their self-professed standards. Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that the Government intend to bring broadcasters within the scope of the Obscene Publications Act 1959?

Mr. Hurd: I entirely agree with the phrasing of my hon. Friend's first point. The answer to his second point is yes—that is another manifesto commitment which we shall fulfil.

Mr. Chris Mullin: Whose idea was it to appoint Sir William Rees-Mogg? Was the job advertised, or did his name just emerge?

Mr. Hurd: It occurred to me as a good one, and I am glad that it has found general favour.

Mr. Chris Butler: My right hon. Friend may be aware that there is one cable channel that broadcasts several hours of pornography every day. Will the new council correct that and, if so, over what period?

Mr. Hurd: I am not quite sure—is my hon. Friend referring to Channel 4? [Laughter.]

Mr. Butler: Cable.

Mr. Hurd: Cable. Some of my hon. Friends have extreme views about Channel 4. Cable will certainly come

within the council's remit. We have discussed the consequences of that with the Cable Authority, and Sir William Rees-Mogg will consider it further.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: The Home Secretary said that parents could be affected by these programmes. As a parent, has he been affected? Has any member of the Tory Cabinet been affected? The right hon. Gentleman must answer that question as a parent. It is no use blaming all these others. Will he answer that question? How does this restriction of liberty fit in with the Tories' oft-proclaimed arguments about freedom of choice?

Mr. Hurd: I have answered the second question already. We shall lay before the House, certainly during this Parliament, a massive broadcasting Bill to enlarge freedom of choice. At the same time, we want to preserve and increase standards. The Broadcasting Standards Council will address itself to the second of those objectives.
Most of our children draw a perfectly good frontier in their minds between what they view and the reality of the outside world, but some children find that difficult or impossible, and their actions outside are affected by what they view. Even if they are relatively few, it can be a desperate business. We must strengthen our fortifications at this point.

Mr. Hattersley: Is the Home Secretary aware that his protestations that there is no desire to have any political influence over the BBC is totally undermined by the identical answers that he gave his hon. Friends? Twice he was asked whether he would extend the authority's powers to interfere in matters of politics and current affairs and he answered, "There will be plenty of time to discuss those suggestions in the future." I have no doubt that there will be, and that the Tory party will want them discussed. I have no doubt that the Home Secretary will capitulate to those influences as he has capitulated to them in the past.

Mr. Hurd: I was being courteous to my hon. Friends and pointing out that there will be plenty of parliamentary time to discuss these matters. I went on to say, as the right hon. Gentleman would have known if he had not been scribbling at the time, that I did not believe that that political path was one down which the new council should go. Handling accusations of political bias is essentially a matter for the broadcasting authorities. The right hon. Gentleman has been trying to stir up a storm in a teacup. Certainly, the waters of the relationship between the Government and broadcasters are a bit choppy at present. I hope and believe that they will now subside to a more normal level and that, as that happens, the Broadcasting Standards Council will be able to work out sensible arrangements for co-operation.

KP Foods Factory (Halifax)

Mrs. Alice Mahon: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
The decision to close KP Foods factory, with a loss of 1,000 jobs.
On Thursday morning, without any warning or prior consultation, 950 of my constituents, employees of KP Foods, part of United Biscuits, of which Sir Hector Laing is chairman, were told that the decision had been taken to close the Halifax factory. That was despite the fact that, last year, KP had a trading profit of £36·8 million—up 23 per cent. on the previous year. The Halifax factory played a great part in that profitability by increasing productivity.
If the closure goes ahead, there will be a net loss to the community of £2·5 million, an increase in unemployment benefit of £1·6 million, and an knock-on effect leading to the loss of a further 250 jobs. KP Foods provides nearly 1,000 jobs in a deprived part of Halifax. Unemployment in that area is already running at over 12 per cent. KP is the only significant employer of women in the area. Although wages are low, the factory provides the only opportunity for employment.
The skilled and loyal workers at KP have done everything that the Government have asked, yet they are to be scrapped because, once again, British manufacturing is up for sale. It is a telling indictment of the Government and their lack of any coherent policy on manufacturing and the work force that a catastrophe of that magnitude can occur, when they are giving highly publicised support to Business in the Community. Halifax has been a major part of that focus.
Business in the Community was launched with royal patronage and enthusiastically supported by the whole town. Because of disastrous Government policies, the town has suffered massive job losses, with the social consequences that they bring. Sir Hector Laing is chairman of Business in the Community. If the factory closes, he should resign, because he will have betrayed the trust that was placed in him.
It is both tragic and ironic that, only days ago, I asked the House for a debate on the hostile Nestle hid for Rowntree—the largest private employer in Halifax. If Rowntree goes, another 3,000 jobs will be lost. The Minister should tell us what the Government plan for manufacturing in the run-up to 1992. Many Opposition Members believe that there will be dozens of UK Foods and Rowntrees in every constituency, unless the Government act soon and give a commitment to protect British jobs. I urge you, Mr. Speaker, to consider a debate.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that she believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
The decision to close KP Foods factory, with a loss of 1,000 jobs.
I can well understand the concern that the hon. Lady has expressed on behalf of her constituents, but, as she knows, the criteria that are laid down require me to decide whether to give the matter precedence over the orders set down for today or tomorrow. I regret that the matter that she has raised does not meet the criteria. Therefore, I cannot submit her application to the House.

Cruise Missiles

Ms. Joan Ruddock: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I raise a matter that was reported in The Independent newspaper. Is it in order for the Secretary of State for Defence to say on television tonight that Britain is to have a new air-launched cruise missile, when the Minister has repeatedly denied to the House that a decision has been taken? The Minister chose not to report on his return from the Nuclear Planning Group, and the House has not had an opportunity to debate whether the nation should have a new generation of nuclear weapons, especially air-launched cruise missiles.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I saw that report, but, of course, we do not know what the Secretary of State will say until he has made his broadcast.

Planning Controls

Mr. Speaker: Because of a late start and the fact that 15 hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, I again ask for brief contributions.

Mr. Sydney Chapman: I beg to move,
That this House welcomes Her Majesty's Government's continuing commitment to protect the Green Belts; supports its initiatives to regenerate the inner cities and other areas of urban dereliction; and recognises that the planning system must be flexible enough to encourage and facilitate development on unused urban land while ensuring the protection of the countryside.
You will know, Mr. Speaker, that I am fortunate to have this debate, having won the ballot for private Member's motions. I shall raise subjects relating to town and country planning in general and our planning control system in particular. Such subjects are important, timely and topical, particularly in view of last week's speech by the Secretary of State. I shall raise two matters—green belt policies, and the sites that are suitable or unsuitable to meet housing demands for the rest of the century—and make two suggestions on changes that should be made to our development control system.
Many of the town and country planning problems that we face today have been brought about through the success of Government policies—for example, sustained economic growth and the spread of home ownership—and, of course, dramatic changing social and demographic factors. I welcome the Government's continuing commitment to the protection of green belts. I say without equivocation that the green belt policy has been the undoubted success of our post-war planning system. Green belts are a milestone in English planning history. Not least, they command wide public support. They have not only succeeded in checking the outward sprawl of our conurbations but assisted urban regeneration.
That point was made in a report from the Environment Select Committee in the last Parliament. The Committee stated that green belts should be sacrosanct. I pay tribute to the work of that Select Committee. It brought out some important reports not only on green belts and land for housing but on the operation and effectiveness of the wildlife and countryside legislation, and the appeals system and major public inquiries. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) who chaired and chairs that Committee.
If anyone should doubt the need for a green belt policy in our country, I refer them to the gargantuan concrete jungle that is greater Tokyo. It is an appalling mess. About 30 million Japanese people live within 30 miles of their Emperor's palace in the heart of the city. At least we can say that His Imperial Majesty is in physical touch with a great number of his subjects. Greater Tokyo is the result of the appalling failure to have a sound and sensible planning system. Thirty million is nearly twice the population of Australia.
To protect our green belts is not to plead selfish parochialism. It is in the national interest to leave green and pleasant countryside accessible to city dwellers. I am glad that, under this Government, the confirmed green belt

area has more than doubled to 4·5 million acres. That represents 14 per cent. of England's land mass. Of course, the green belts are entirely in England. That 4·5 million acres represents only about 20 per cent. of England's countryside. Even accepting that other parts of the countryside—national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special and scientific interest and so on—are afforded protection of one degree or another, most of our countryside is outside statutorily protected areas.
I want to examine the future need for housing and where that housing demand should be met. I am conscious of the fact that the problems relating to this issue are at their most acute in the south of Britain and not necessarily just in the south-east.

Mr. Quentin Davies: Before my hon. Friend proceeds with the substance of his speech, may I ask whether he has noticed the almost complete absence of the Labour party and the so-called alliance parties from the Chamber? We have only three Labour Members here—the statutory minimum of two plus one—and one representative from the alliance parties. Does my hon. Friend agree that that attendance is a most interesting commentary on the concern felt by those parties about the preservation of our countryside and urban renewal?

Mr. Chapman: It is obvious that my hon. Friend is more of a mathematical expert than I, and I am sure that he is right. I like to be charitable to my political opponents and I am convinced that their numbers today are proportionate to the seats that they hold in southern Britain.

Mr. Clive Soley: Let me put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery. I suggested to a number of my hon. Friends that they should not attend the debate because I believed that we should leave it to the Conservatives, who are so divided on this issue. The more of them who speak the better, and they should keep it up.

Mr. Chapman: I shall not tempt providence, so I shall say nothing.
I agree with a number of the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in his speech last week. I believe that the increased demand for housing in southern Britain in the years to come will arise not because of a significant increase in the population, but because of a need to cater for an increase in the number of households. An increasing number of young people leave their parents' homes and set up homes of their own before getting married. Further and alas, there are more divorces and broken marriages and, whereas one household used to suffice for a family, two households are now needed. Thankfully, more elderly people are living longer and they require accommodation.
Although I agree with my right hon. Friend that there is no net immigration of people from other regions to the south-east, I believe that there is a significant net immigration of people to London from abroad. I believe that that factor must be taken into account.
I welcome the fact that, in the past few years, there has been an increasing proportion of development on recycled land in the south-east. My right hon. Friend informed us that 55 per cent. of housing has been built on such underused urban areas.

Mr. David Martin: I hope that my hon. Friend will address the problems faced by places such as Portsmouth, which has little open green space. Residents are already worried about the amount of space that has been taken up within the city, rather than being left open and green. Yet those in the countryside who live in homes that were once green fields criticise those who want to move into similar open space around them. Is it not true that today's conservationist is yesterday's developer and yesterday's home buyer?

Mr. Chapman: My hon. Friend makes an important point and I intend to return to that later. People in towns and cities are keen that they should be left their green spaces, which are important, but space should also be left for people living in the metropolitan suburbs. When I spoke about 55 per cent. of housing being built on urban land I meant recycled urban land, which was often under-used or derelict, and not the parks and open spaces of those areas.
I do not believe that anyone in the Chamber would say that there is no need for house building on green field sites, but we need to be convinced, and we are entitled to ask, "How much—where and when?" before we allow building to take place in the countryside. I also believe that we are entitled to be convinced that the maximum amount of house building—within practical reason and taking account of demand—will be in existing urban areas. To that extent, I want the Government to continue their policies of urban regeneration and the development of the inner cities. I believe that the Government have made great strides in that respect. I accept that the process was started some years ago by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), when he was Secretary of State for the Environment, who established urban regeneration initiatives. However, I believe that such regeneration has been given a great push forward by the Government, and I welcome that.
I still believe that there is much more land that can be sought out, unlocked and developed. By that I mean unused and underused urban land and not the necessary green spaces of our urban areas.

Mr. Soley: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the Secretary of State that there should be less planning at local level because the housing market must adjust in rural areas to take in people who have left the cities? Alternatively, does he agree with the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who believes that planning should not be conducted in such a manner and that the Secretary of State should not override planning decisions as he has done? The hon. Gentleman should deal with that, because it is the essential issue that should be addressed.

Mr. Chapman: The hon. Gentleman must be a little more patient, because I hope to deal with that issue later, and I shall try to get to it as soon as possible.
I welcome the establishment of the urban development corporations, the simplified planning zones, and so on. About 80 per cent. of us live in urban areas, but so long as some of those areas are a disgrace to any nation that calls itself civilised, people will want to get out and live beyond the suburbs.
The Government must show in their urban policies that there can he inestimable benefit from living in urban areas, such as easy access to vital services and leisure facilities,

and much less time taken in getting to and from work. There must also be a much more effective use of existing housing stock in the urban areas.

Mr. Michael Fallon: Surely the difficulty that faces the "southern comfort" lobby is that the urban areas on which my hon. Friend wishes more houses to be built are largely concentrated in the north, whereas the land on which housing is needed is concentrated in the south, where the jobs of the future are increasingly likely to be located. If further planning restrictions are imposed, what hope is there for a large number of those 600,000 new homes which are required in the south being made available for people from other regions who want to seek work there?

Mr. Chapman: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I do not suggest that there are any glib or easy solutions to the problem. I believe that in the next decade the problem will be at its most acute in southern Britain, and it is on that area that I wish to concentrate.
I do not want to be party to any discussion of the possibility of people going from the south to the north or vice versa. I have based my remarks on my right hon. Friend's statistics—he is advised by experts. Although it is easier to find unused land in the urban areas of the north, I believe that if we adopt the right policies in the south we can form a overall national policy, which will benefit the country. Although the problem is more acute in the south, there is still much unused urban land that can be tapped in London and in other southern towns.

Mr. Robin Squire: On that specific point, does my hon. Friend confirm that it is important that inner London retains its areas of greenery and that we try to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 1960s when we overdeveloped a fair part of inner London, with obvious social consequences?

Mr. Chapman: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), and I shall refer to those matters.
Apart from trying to make rundown estates and difficult-to-let public sector housing more attractive to people, further initiatives can be taken in tapping the spare accommodation in our towns and cities. That can be done through more encouragement to the private rented sector. A week ago we debated the proposal in the Finance (No. 2) Bill to extend the business expansion scheme to the private rented sector. I hope to show later that there is a great need, especially in London, to cater for the great increase in the number of single person households. Releasing that spare accommodation will be a significant factor in London.

Mr. Andrew Smith: With regard to the increase in the number of single-person households, if over-rigorous restraint is applied, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the onward march of multiple occupation through the residential suburbs is no more welcome to Conservative Members and their supporters than the arrival of the bulldozers on open countryside?

Mr. Chapman: I agree with that.
The real problem is to what extent future housing development must he met in England's countryside. It would be helpful if the Government recognised that the planning system can play a positive part in dealing with


that problem. We must ensure that any development in the countryside is carried out in such a way as to minimise the harmful environmental consequences. The Government, when assessing how much development is necessary for the countryside, must justify the figures updated by the Secretary of State last week. He said that the forecast for the number of new homes in the south-east up to the year 2001—which is only 13 years away—is to be increased from 460,000 to 610,000. A proportion of that number, but by no means the major proportion, will be in London.
I put those statistics to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment who will be replying to the debate. My information is that nearly half of the 610,000 extra homes are needed in London, and 90 per cent. of those will be for one-person households. If that is so, the vast amount of that demand can be satisfied in London and in the other urban areas of the south-east.
More specifically, the public must be reassured that as much as possible of the increased housing demand will be met in urban areas. Encouragement and resources must be given to urban local authorities so that they can realise the maximum potential for recycling underused and unused land.

Mr. Nicholas Baker: I understand that on those figures the proportion of new single households projected for 1991 to 2001 in the south-east will be about 95 per cent. Those are the people who the Secretary of State has said should be housed within urban and developed areas.

Mr. Chapman: I said that 90 per cent. of London's demand is for single-person households. Therefore I have no reason to suppose that the overall figure for the south-east is not about 95 per cent.

Mr. Stan Crowther: Are those figures based on an assumption that regional policy will continue to be a failure, as it always has been? I do not especially blame this Government. Further, will the over-concentration of employment in and near London continue? If we had a successful regional policy, shifting the balance in favour of the more northerly parts of Britain, those figures would have to be re-examined.

Mr. Chapman: I know that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther) speaks with great experience on these matters. He is a member of the Town and Country Planning Association council. I remind him that I said at the beginning of my speech that, whatever the regional policy, those figures are based, not on any immigration into the south-east from the other regions, but on a slight net emigration. It is for the hon. Gentleman to say how significant regional policies could be in minimising the demand forecast in these figures.
I refer now to what I believe should be the backbone of the Government's policies relating to the countryside. Development in the countryside must be a policy of last resort. There must be certainty about the policy. Then, we hope, there will be widespread public support for it. Vagueness, equivocation and uncertainty are damaging to the Government's policies. As long as there is doubt about the policies, speculation will be rife and land values will escalate. Taking a median figure, the average price of agricultural land is about £2,000 an acre. It is not an

exaggeration to say that some of the prime green field sites in southern Britain have development values of about –1 million an acre. As long as there is doubt, there will be a feeling that there is a free-for-all. That would be a terrible disaster in the planning of sensible policies for our countryside.
Our countryside is a unique heritage and a priceless asset. I am not a rural Member of Parliament, so it is not petty parochial pleading to ask that the countryside be protected from unnecessary development. I believe that it is in the national interest.
I do not want to be seen to be dealing just with planning in the countryside, the urban areas, the cities and the large towns. I am also interested in the hinterland of suburbia, especially on the outskirts of our great metropolis. There are pleasant residential areas there that need also to be protected. They are areas which are worthy of care and conservation.
Due to the sustained economic growth, the spread of home ownership and the social changes, I find in my constituency—I am pleading a touch of parochialism here, although it is not confined to my constituency—that there is a proliferation of new developments, usually blocks of flats, that are hopelessly out of scale, character and harmony with the areas in which they are placed. They are destroying the semi-rural atmosphere of those suburbs which is important to the pleasantness of these residential areas. When they bring with them a significant increase in density in those neighbourhoods, usually with inadequate roads and with inadequate sewage systems, that is a backward step and harmful to the environment.
I have suggested to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that local planning authorities should have the power to designate such pleasant residential areas as "special protection areas"—I have used the acronym SPAs—so that the local planning authority could turn down any application that was out of scale, density or character, and have its decision backed up, if necessary, by the Secretary of State on appeal.
Of course I recognise that there is a need for flats. Indeed, I have referred to single-person accommodation. However, there are appropriate areas for those flats and there are other areas where that sort of development, although needed, is completely inappropriate. I suggest that for such areas my hon. Friend could lay down the condition that permission is required before the demolition of perfectly decent houses is allowed. That proposal was put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes). There is a need for such additional protection in residential areas—a sort of
halfway house towards conservation.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because he has given way many times already. I thank him also for referring to the proposals in my Bill, which has now lost the possibility of a Second Reading, but which will return. Does my hon. Friend agree that such a proposal would not hinder legitimate planning developments, where there was a case for the development in the right place, but would provide essential protection in, for example, our outer London boroughs, where developers are indulging in wholesale demolition—I believe that my hon. Friend's constituency suffers from that, as does my own area—and then creating the fait accompli of a development site where a large number of flats will be built without any control by the


local planning committee? Does he agree that that should be an essential additional component of modern planning techniques and that the Government should be more enthusiastic about it from now on?

Mr. Chapman: I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. There is great force in his proposal. I am sorry to hear that his Bill has been denied its Second Reading. I hope that he will persevere.
If the Minister does not feel able to accept that proposal, at least there should be clarity in Government circulars. Indeed, the problem arises from the interpretation of circular 22/80. Local planning authorities feel that they cannot resist such developments because the developments will be upheld on appeal.
I should like to make one other proposal about possible changes in our planning system. I must declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, although I have not practised for years. Complaints have proliferated that some developments are starting without planning permission or are going ahead in contravention of a condition of the planning permission. I have written to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning about that and he has replied that the planning authorities have powers under stop notices and enforcement notices. However, those notices are difficult to institute.
The only solution is that there should be financial penalties for such actions whether or not planning permission is subsequently given. I feel strongly about that, because more and more people feel that there is corruption in the planning system; they see developments going ahead without the necessary permission. I hope that my hon. Friend will respond kindly to that suggestion. I welcome the review of local authorities' enforcement powers against breaches of town planning laws which the Secretary of State has recently announced.
I realise that land use planning is an attempt to meet two irreconcilables—the needs of developers and the interests of conservation. If I had to make a judgment on our town and country planning system over the past 40 years, I would say that the system has not been particularly successful in the planning of our towns. However, it has been reasonably successful in preventing undue sprawl of urban areas into the countryside.
I like to think that we have learnt seven lessons from the experience of our planning system during the 40 years since the passing of the great Town and Country Planning Act 1947. First, there must be reasonable certainty about what the planning regime is and what the Government's policies are. That is essential to ensure confidence.
Secondly, we have learnt that ad hoc changes to our planning system are bad. Thirdly, experience has shown that Government guidelines—whether in circulars or elsewhere—must be unambiguous. There is too much equivocation today on issues relating to development and conservation.
Fourthly, continuing initiatives are necessary to bring forward land that is suitable for development in our cities. I see nothing wrong in the Government setting targets for individual local authorities because I believe that they have a fair inkling of the amount of derelict or unused land in their areas.
Fifthly, there is a need for more positive management of and commitment to the conservation of our countryside. Sixthly, the planning system should be made flexible to cover different needs and conditions in different

parts of Britain. That should not be done by stripping away whole parts of the planning system because of short-term needs or whims. Changes must be carefully worked out, and I recognise the great progress that the Government have made on that. They have continued to protect certain parts of the country, especially the countryside, but have made the planning regime much more flexible and much simpler in areas where there is a desperate need to encourage redevelopment.
Seventhly, whatever town and country planning system we have, different types of decision will still need to be taken at different levels. Clearly, there is a part to be played—perhaps the greatest part—by local planning authorities, in the sense of local district councils, but there is also a need for a larger or county overview in, for example, matters relating to nature conservation. I hope that that will assume a greater importance in the Government's policies, especially as a result of the changing regime in agriculture. However, there is also a need for a regional overview, even if there is not a need for statutory regional authorities.
I believe that SERPLAN the South-East Regional Planning Council—can work. I do not say this in a party political sense, but the experience of the Greater London council showed that there was conflict between the GLC and many of the London boroughs. There should be an attempt at consensus. I hope that individual London boroughs will work in harmony with SERPLAN and the London planning advisory committee.
The Government should build on our 40 years' experience of our town and country planning laws. There must be a common-sense attitude if we are to succeed in reconstructing our inner cities, caring for and containing our towns and suburbs, and conserving our countryside.

Mr. Simon Hughes: I welcome the choice of subject of the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman). It is a subject that he knows a lot about and about which he is known to know a lot. I do not disagree with one word that he said. I hope that his remarks have made it clear that for 40 years or thereabouts, there has been consensus in Britain, among politicians who have considered the issue and the people who are knowlegeable about it, that we need to use planning and the tools of intervention, by both Government and local government, to balance the interests of housing and conservation—and, indeed, that is what has happened.
The debate has made it clear that the Secretary of State—I concede this willingly—has accepted that there will be intervention. He has not pretended that there will be a free-market approach with no restrictions. As the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet knows, part of my constituency is in the London Docklands development corporation area, and I see the evidence of intervention around me, as we try to attract into the inner city, thereby regenerating it, what would otherwise go to rural or suburban Britain, or to the home counties. It is right that we reaffirm all-party support for the right approach, which is to intervene in the right way to make sure that there is the right balance.
As to the point made by the hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies), unfortunately, the electoral system means that I am the only visible representative of


my party from the south-east. My party received half the votes of his party, but the electoral system did not give us half the seats. If it were fairer, there would be more of us here. It is even more unfair because it gives the Labour party, which had even fewer votes than we did, one more seat in the south-east.
I shall be brief because it is right that there should be contributions from as wide a cross-section of opinion in the House as possible. However, I wish to reaffirm my party's commitment to the green belt. This is the first opportunity that I have had to do so under slightly different colours. It is my hope that our colours will become ever more green.
The green belt policy has demonstrated—we have added to this over recent years—the need to resist market forces as the only arbiter of environmental decisions. When developers are queuing to grab land around urban Britain, particularly around London, the green belt is of great importance. My colleagues have always considered that the pressure that developers exert, which increases as the economy expands, means that we have to consider the green belt as even more important. As the pressure increases, it becomes more important that the methods to resist the pressure are seen as strong.
We have to use the green belt not just to preserve the lung around London and other urban areas but to allow other rural communities to have their own identity and characteristics. Recreation, good agriculture and environmental regeneration are all proper. The green belt has not restricted the availability of jobs or growth, and should be seen as a benefit, not as a disadvantage. Furthermore, we must remember that we have the stewardship of the land for future generations and it is not there just for our use. Therefore, our response should be to need, and we should not use demand as the governing criterion.
My party and other Opposition Members have the suspicion that the pressure is greater because of the links between developers and the present Government party. That is evidenced to be a fact, and the row that goes on is the battle between the electors, whose representatives are here and who are concerned to resist development pressure, and some of the Government's paymasters, who clearly want to develop more and find profit in doing so.
When the Secretary of State turned down the application by Consortium Developments Ltd. for a new town at Tillingham Hall, that was not entirely unwelcome to the developers. Consortium Developments Ltd. saw encouragement for its processes of building new towns around the south-east. David Crewe of that company wrote, in the Municipal Journal of 15 April 1988, an article entitled "Case for building new-town hamlets". He made the case that Consortium Developments' basic concept of new towns was supported by the Tillingham Hall decision.
The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet left out one crucial point. It is that the interests of developers do not coincide with what the Secretary of State, in his speech last week to the Bow Group, described as meeting the needs of those
at the bottom of the pile".
Developers want straightforwardly to do the kind of building that enables them to make the most profit in the shortest time. Generally, that means up-market homes in desirable green field sites, or along the river in London, which sell for high prices.
The hon. Member cited figures that we can all use, showing that what is needed is not expensive five and six-bedroomed houses in the green belt but sheltered housing for the elderly or homes for single people, which are rented cheap or purchased cheap. There is room for that in the inner city and in infill sites in small villages. In each village, there are probably one or two such sites. I come from a rural background and my mother is chairman of a parish council, and my ear is regularly bent on this issue.
We have to develop gradually, and there are methods for doing so. The Government could bring into use the capital receipts of local authorities and spend them on regeneration and on the sort of housing that is needed. The Government could allow local authorities to be properly funded and could provide a fiscal incentive to building work on existing sites rather than green field sites, whether by alteration of VAT or by some other method. The Government could also put a tax on derelict inner-city land, and I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question on this. If we respond to the increasing number of households, then we must respond with the appropriate type of housing. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet left out that one element—that the housing has to be of the right type.
As Government Members will know, in the structure plans for their counties—whether Bedfordshire or Berkshire—there is an over-supply of land as compared with requirements over the next five years. For example, in Bedfordshire the over-supply is 118 per cent., in Berkshire it is 105 to 122 per cent., in Buckinghamshire, 108 to 143 per cent., in East Sussex 126 per cent. and so on. In West Sussex, it is 177 per cent.—

Mr. Robert Key: What about Wiltshire?

Mr. Hughes: Sadly, my figures do not go far enough west to include Wiltshire. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a valid concern.
In every county in the south-east, there is an over-provision in the structure plan, so there is not the pressure that the developers argue there is. Land is available if inner-city land is used as well.
Surely Government policy should be to proceed slowly. Surely the approach should be incremental, and to infill and to see whether the housing legislation going through the House releases empty property for private letting. That is the way to proceed—certainly but slowly. The figures in London and the south-east are telling. In the private sector, there are 177,000 empty properties and in other sectors, including local authorities, 44,200. That is nearly 250,000 empty properties. If Government policies will bring those back into use, then let them be brought back into use first before we start building on either green belt or green field areas, with disadvantageous results for the local communities.
We have the property and we have provided the land. We must be more clear, and the message coming from the House and Ministers must be clear: it is that green belt and the conservation and protection of our environment—urban and rural—will be the hallmark of Government green belt and housing policy.

Sir Hugh Rossi: I join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for


Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) not only for his selection of the subject today, which is suddenly topical, but on the thoughtful way in which he presented his argument—an argument with which I do not think anyone in the Chamber will disagree. As has been said, he has a distinguished professional background. I thank him for referring to the work of the Select Committee on the Environment. As a former distinguished member of that Committee, he has contributed greatly to the two reports that we produced on this topic, one in 1984 on the green belt and land for housing and one in 1986 on the planning appeal system.
I found some similarities between what my hon. Friend was saying today and some of the conclusions reached in those reports and the recommendations that he was instrumental in making. He was right to say that the main problem in this field is and always has been the tension between those who want to develop in response to social needs and those who want to conserve that which already exists.
In comparison with other countries, our planning system has served us very well, although it is always possible to point to individual decisions which could, perhaps with advantage, have been different. We do not need to go as far afield as Japan to see the value of our planning system. Some European countries could well have done with a planning system similar to ours, because in those countries beautiful areas have been spoiled by indiscriminate development.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet was right to say that the essential ingredient in the success of our planning system is the green belt policy. One must appreciate and understand the objectives of that policy, and we must not confuse green belt with green field. That is happening in many of the discussions that are taking place. Green belts are there to stop the growth of large built-up areas, to create around them a sort of cordon sanitaire in order to contain them. Secondly, green belts are to stop urban areas merging with one another and creating an extensive urban sprawl that is virtually without end. Thirdly, the green belt protects the special character of some of our historic cities.
There should be a fourth objective, and it is the one that the Select Committee urged the Government to include in a circular. It should be to assist urban regeneration: through containment, pressures begin to bear upon inner cities with derelict land that can be brought back into effective and economic use. That should be clearly stated in circulars and should not simply be given in answers to parliamentary questions that I have asked from time to time. That is insufficient for people outside the House, because it does not enable them to understand and appreciate that part of Government policy.
I congratulate the Government on the steps that they have taken to increase the effectiveness of urban regeneration. Only a month or two ago, we had a statement from the Secretary of State about the restructuring of derelict land and urban regeneration grants into a new and simplified system. I was assured at the time, and I hope, that that system will be demand-led and not cash-limited. Whatever the Treasury may say, that is essential if we are to encourage developers to move into our inner cities and regenerate land which at the moment has a negative value.
I recognise the acceptance and the adherence of the Government to a green belt policy and an urban

regeneration policy. However, people do not have a sacrosanct right to say that no further development may take place in other areas. It is selfish for people to say that as they are the last people to move into an area nobody else can move there. If such people are not living in a green belt or in an area of outstanding natural beauty which, because of its nature, requires some kind of protection, it is quite unacceptable for them to take such a view.
We must recognise the changing nature of our society. We have improved transport systems and different methods of work and people do not necessarily need to be huddled one upon the other in flats in the centre of towns. People should aspire to a different lifestyle during their working life as well as in their retirement. If society adopts that course, our legal structures must be adapted in order to meet that demand while ensuring that excesses do not take place.
This is where I begin to quarrel with the Government. I accept that there is a tension between developers and conservationists; although that poses a dilemma for the Government, they should give a far clearer lead and a clearer picture of their policy than they have done hitherto.
In its report on planning appeals of 1986, the Select Committee identified a mismatch between central and local government planning objectives. The Select Committee noted the vagueness of circulars and it seemed, at the time that the Committee's report was being written, that planning law was being decided by the appeal system. One did not know what was likely to happen until one appealed to the Secretary of State who made the decision. The guidelines were not clear enough to show whether an appeal was likely to succeed. That led to the appeals system becoming bogged down, burdensome and expensive, both to the local planning authorities and to the developers.
The Government should carefully note the last seven points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet. He said that there must be a clearer and more positive policy and that vagueness should be abandoned. I think that he said—if he did not, I certainly say to the members of the Government party who have the good fortune to represent fair county seats—that whatever the pressures from constituents, they should remember that other people in these emerald isles also have a right to enjoy living among the green fields.

Mr. Andrew Smith: I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) on initiating this debate. I endorse his call for integrity in the planning system and welcome the degree to which that view has been supported.
There was a reference to the number of Labour Members in the House. There is 100 per cent. representation from Labour Members representing south-eastern seats outside London because I am here. Perhaps some hon. Members are hesitant about intruding on private grief and being party to the deepening split between the Secretary of State for the Environment and the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). The right hon. Member for Henley represents a small corner of my garden and has succeeded in safeguarding it from development—except for the part where I have built my compost heap.
I agree with the Secretary of State for the Environment on two key points. First, I agree that there is an acute need for extra housing in the south-east. Conservative Members have conceded that that is beyond doubt although we might argue about the precise figures. Secondly, if nothing is done it is the poor who will suffer most of all. So far that point has not been touched on very much. I emphasise that the attitude of the Government and the Secretary of State to local councils in their efforts to provide, directly or in partnership with housing associations, housing to meet local needs is one of opposition. Putting every barrier in the way of local authorities does not help to get a solution to the intense housing problems facing people in the south-east.
Oxford city council has been one of the main victims of the barrier put in the way of lease-back deals in the Secretary of State's recent announcement. The Development of 1,300 houses on green fields next to my house has been at least substantially delayed. The wherewithal to finance a scheme that had the support of the city, south Oxfordshire and the county council will now be found with difficulty, if at all. Ironically, one of the only alternatives would be to sell the whole thing off for speculative housing development, which would not meet local need and would aggravate the problems.
I see the solution to the housing problems confronting the south-east neither in the market liberalism of the Secretary of State—tempered though it may be—nor in the "not-in-my-back-yardism" of the right hon. Member for Henley. If we exercise the rigid restraint for which some Conservative Members in the south-east have called, the pressure will simply build up to intolerable levels in existing urban areas. There will be more and more subdivision of existing properties, and the onward march of multiple occupation will proceed through the suburbs. Furthermore, thousands more will be condemned to live in appalling conditions—in homeless family accommodation, crammed into unsuitable and damp homes, or crowding on to the increasing number of caravan sites proliferating around the edges of the urban areas.
The policy of the Department of the Environment seems to make matters worse rather than better. The Use Classes Order, in effectively deregulating planning control where six people or fewer are sharing a house, has given rise to considerable pressures in my constituency, and I know that the same applies in Cambridge and other southern towns. It gives the local authority no control over the uses to which residential accommodation is put. I fear that the deregulation in the Housing Bill will simply worsen the problem, and make it very much more difficult for families to find accommodation that they can afford.
The reason why we face such difficulties, and why Conservative Members have a particular problem, is a contradiction at the heart of Government policy and current Conservative ideology. The Government advocate the free market and the free movement of capital. They give the free market priority, whether trade unionists are attempting to intervene to protect their members' interests or democratically elected councils are standing up for the interests of the local population. As a consequence, we have seen the free market operating to generate a high degree of economic growth in the south-east, sucking in capital from other regions. We have also seen many people

taking the advice of the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), getting on their bikes and finding work in the south-east. Although I concede that there may be a small net emigration from the south-east, that is not inconsistent with pressure from the immigration of people looking for jobs.
Workers who come to my surgeries—as I am sure that they come to those of other south-east Members—have seen job advertisements in the local paper, after being unemployed for five or 10 years, and have come down from Scotland or Liverpool, taking the advice of the right hon. Member for Chingford. They have found work and then been unable to find accommodation for love or money. They cannot afford to buy or to rent on the private market, and the council waiting lists are too long for them to have any prospect of accommodation in the foreseeable future. The same is true of housing associations. Nothing in the Government's present proposals or in the Housing Bill will make the position other than much worse. Those people should not be forgotten—people who are separated from their families, which causes the same marital pressure, anxiety and worry that afflicts many thousands in south-east England who cannot find or afford accommodation even when they have been born and brought up here.
I am pleased that Conservative Members are showing some awareness that intervention is necessary in the form of planning controls and an effective regional economic policy. Let me emphasise how important that is. The failure and relative absence of regional policy in recent years bears a large part of the responsibility. I am not saying that it would solve all the problems, but it could certainly alleviate them. We need a much more determined programme of investment in infrastructure and services in the depressed regions. We need a total change in the Government's attitude towards local authorities, with which they should be working in partnership to bring about economic regeneration in other parts of the country, which could lift some of the pressure in the south-east. Similarly, the Government should be working in partnership with local authorities in southern England to address local housing needs.
Let me suggest some of the steps that I think should be taken. In the difficult planning decisions that come before local authorities, there should be an effective voice for local people. Such are the capital surpluses that can be generated by the sort of speculative developments that we see in the south-east that it pays developers every time to engage high-calibre advice, and to put together an effective progaganda machine in favour of their developments. Local people, and increasingly even local authorities, are hard put to match that when it comes either to the planning process or to a public inquiry. The Government should address themselves to the funding of objectors.
I urge the Government to work within the framework and in harmony with democratically formulated county structure and local plans. A number of proposals—including one at Stone Bassett, not far from my constituency—are in clear contradiction of the structure plan. They do not fall within the green belt. The more that the Secretary of State talks about the need to protect the green belt the more worried local people become about other areas of open countryside—notwithstanding the fact that our structure plan clearly indicates parts of the county to which development should be steered.
If—as is the case—additional housing is required, there should be a general increase in targets, and it should be up to local authorities, in consultation with local people, to identify the appropriate pieces of land. Adding some houses in a number of different villages is a possibility: that can do something for village life, and for the economic and social vitality of individual villages. We also wish to see redundant urban land brought into use. But however it is done, it must carry local opinion with it wherever possible. Above all—I do not expect this from the present Government—it is essential to get to grips with the massive amounts of capital to be made in profits on speculative developments.
At present, agricultural land in Oxfordshire sells for about £2,000 an acre and residential land is worth between £500,000 and £1 million an acre, depending on where it is. There are proposals for a 600-acre development at Stone Bassett, which means that there is a potential profit of at least £300 million before one starts. That gives a massive incentive for speculative development by the consortium of developers.
I believe that attempting to plan that process without getting to grips with land values is like trying to steer a car without being able to regulate the engine. As it runs increasingly faster, each little twitch on the steering wheel threatens some damage. I concede that attempts in the past to extract for the community a fair share of development value have not been organised as well as they should or worked as well as one would want. It is an area to which a responsible Government would address themselves, so that those windfall profits do not simply fall into the hands of speculators, but are available to the community as a whole, which, after all, gives the planning approval concerning what is the heritage of us all. It is the community, not the developers, who should benefit.

Sir Hugh Rossi: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned an important point. I hope that the Labour party has learnt from the errors of the past and will not return to the concept of a development land tax or a betterment levy, which were a total failure. The figures are £5 administration costs for every £1 recovered. Section 152 agreements are a far better way of clawing back to the community some of the benefits of the development.

Mr. Smith: I have heard at least one Conservative Member advocate taxation on undeveloped urban land. The principle that, where development takes place, a fair share should come back to the community, is sound and should be pursued with all vigour.
If the form of agreement suggested by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) could be strengthened and given real bite, and could take the heat and incentive out of the motive to the speculators, I, and certainly the Labour party, would look at that, but one thing remains certain. That is that, as long as there are large profits to be made, as at present, any land that might be taken for development in the south-east will continue to be at risk.
I urge the Government to do this, and Labour would do it where the Conservatives would not. We must examine the distributional aspect, as the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said. We must consider who will get the houses. It is not simply a matter of where they go and how many there are; it is a matter of who will live in them and be able to afford to do so. Again,

if it is left to the market, all those speculative developments will cater primarily for up-market housing. They will riot meet the needs of those who are in overcrowded accommodation, stuck on cairavan sites or, as is happening increasingly, having to share accommodation with relatives or commute back to Liverpool or Kilmarnock every other weekend to see their family.
What is needed is much stronger and more deliberate intervention to ensure that, where there is development, it provides low-cost accommodation to rent, municipal accommodation available for allocation on the basis of need, or accommodation that housing associations can allocate on the basis of need. I emphasise that low-cost housing for purchase should be provided.
The state of affairs at Stone Bassett gives rise to a great deal of concern in Oxfordshire. The land is outside both the Oxford and London green belts, but it is of a high amenity value—visually, I believe. The proposals are opposed strongly locally by immediately neighbouring residents and villages, which one might expect. However, there is also a great deal of concern across the county that in itself the development will add to the pressure on local services to an extent that will not be compensated by the benefits to the community that the developers might make available. Moreover, there is a great deal of concern that any such development is unlikely to meet local housing needs.
There is also strong concern, so vigorously has the proposal been opposed by the Member of Parliament, the right hon. Member for Henley, and such is the vehemence with which the row between himself and the Secretary of State is developing, that there might be a temptation for the Government to approve the scheme precisely because it falls in the right hon. Gentleman's patch. I hope and trust that that will not happen.
The Government and all parties must look afresh at the Town and Country Planning Act and how it operates when there is such intense pressure for development in the south-east. It often seemed to me, as the chairman of a planning committee for several years, that, in regard to development control, the present operation of the Act is too negative, in that the onus is on what one turns down rather than on what one positively advocates. It is too passive in that local authorities have to wait for developments to come to them, rather than being able to plan the best developments in the light of local needs.
The Act is permissive in that the onus is on local authorities to grant planning permission except where there is good reason not to do so and even when they might have good ideas about what might be a preferable scheme. The Act should be made more positive and pro-active. it should be combined with stronger and more effective regional policy and a genuine willingness to get to grips with land values and to ensure that, where developments takes place, they are applied to the benefit of the whole community.
If Conservative Members who are grasping their way towards realising the importance of interventionism were prepared to go further in that direction, no one would welcome it more than me. As the people of the south-east recognise increasingly that intervention, both locally and nationally, is essential to address the growing problems and stresses arising from the economic pressure in the south-east, they will also recognise increasingly that, if


interventionism is what is called for, it is best to elect a Government who genuinely believe in it, rather than try to press the case on a Government who so manifestly do not.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) on selecting this subject for debate. Many of my hon. Friends and I believe that the issue is of greater importance than the Government currently realise. Any opportunity to give it a full airing is welcome because there is great depth of public feeling about it in many parts of the country.
Last week there were two events of substantial importance, relevant to this subject. First, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a full statement of the Government's position in a speech to the Bow Group. He set out the reasons that prompted the Government to permit a record level of housing development over recent years, and tried to justify why it should continue for the foreseeable future. Secondly, he found himself in the embarassing position of having to acknowledge that his estimates of household growth in the south-east were understated by no fewer than 150,000 households—some 33 per cent.—and that the counties in Serplan should make provision accordingly. Such an error hardly gives me much confidence in the methodology of the Department of the Environment, since the last figures were issued only in 1986.
There is no serious philosophical difference about whether we should have planning controls. They have been with us through all colours of Government for some 40 years and any proposal to sweep them away would be unthinkable and unacceptable. That said, the Government are the final arbiter and, like it not, they have the ultimate responsibility for the strategic planning decisions that effect the nation. At the end of the line, they decide the quality of life of many of our people. They cannot abrogate that responsibility, nor should they. But to conclude, as this Government are doing, that all demands for housing should be met regardless of the consequences for others, is just as irresponsible to present and future generations as abandoning all attempts at planning and merely giving way to market forces.
The difficulties of house building on a massive scale over a short period without the necessary supporting infrastructure came vividly to my attention during the huge housing developments that took place in my constituency. In discussing my anxiety with hon. Friends, the great national importance of this question became apparent. Around every major conurbation developers have been active, and nowhere more so than in the south-east. Therefore, it is disastrous news to hear that the Government expect house building to continue in the south-east at no less than the present rate well into the next century.
I remind my hon. Friend the Minister that the strength of feeling in the Conservative party can best be measured by the fact that 93 colleagues like to have notice of meetings that I may arrange on the subject. It is wrong to suggest that we wish to stop all building at a stroke, but many of us believe that in certain areas the pace must be drastically reduced—at least until recent building can be

sensibly absorbed, the roads are upgraded to cope with the extra population, schools and hospitals are built, and open spaces and recreational facilities are dealt with, together with all the other amenities that are normally provided for an established community.
My hon. Friends may have seen the pamphlet "This Pleasant Land" which some of us published. It points to the complementary and acknowledged problems of our inner cities. It cannot be right that our major cities are allowed to fall into a state of dereliction while those who work in them must move further and further out to live and, in the case of London, to live beyond the green belt on massive housing developments which create heavy pressures on all the existing community facilities. The Government recognise the problems of the inner cities and we support what they are doing, but we cannot understand why we do not receive a more sympathetic hearing for our reasoned arguments against green field building beyond the green belt.
The Government can make a start on solving this problem by administrative means. First, they must restore the power of the district council as the principal planning authority. It is best placed to recognise local feelings and the merits or otherwise of individual applications. The hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) touched on that when he too made a plea for the recognition of local feeling, for it is on that that we base our case. The Government must realise that, if they do everything centrally, they are bound to face this sort of criticism.
The cancellation or modification of the circular that requires each district to have a five-year land bank would also be required. Many districts are finding their decisions reversed on appeal because they do not have one. That obligation has been the developers' charter. Many district councils without such a land bank are forced to allow unwanted developments because they know that their decisions will be reversed on appeal and, naturally, they wish to avoid the costs involved.
In his speech on Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out that some districts, faced with an unpopular application which the council might welcome, reject it in the knowledge that the Minister will subsequently allow it and so eventually carry the odium. Either way, the Government get it wrong and in neither case does the district council get its way. I understand that my proposal would drastically slow the rate of development in some areas, but others would welcome the opportunity to encourage development. I deplore the Government's reluctance to make these vital changes.
My hon. Friend mentioned the concrete desert of Tokyo. The other day I was in Los Angeles and was told that Greater Los Angeles spreads for no fewer than 250 miles. We do not have space on our little island to spread like that; and the electorate is overwhelmingly opposed to a concrete jungle from Kent to Somerset and from Hampshire to Cambridge. Time is no longer on our side. In his speech my right hon. Friend spoke of the need to house the families of existing inhabitants. They are today's electorate and if they had strong feelings and shared his fears, surely they would say so.
Usually, the Conservative party has been highly sensitive to the feelings of its supporters, and in this case in particular the Goverment would be most unwise to ignore the huge groundswell of popular opinion that is opposed to their present policy. It is our intention to keep


this matter in the forefront of debate until we obtain a meaningful response from the Government which will allay the fears of our constituents.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I join my hon. Friends in congratulating our hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) on the many wise statements he made. I should like to concentrate on his plea to the Government to be more flexible in their planning policies and to differentiate more expertly and firmly and with greater stability on the differences between one area and another. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reply to that specific point, which has been echoed by other hon. Members.
I have some sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He has a difficult problem to deal with, as my hon. Friend recognised, and he has undoubtedly been shocked by the new extrapolation of the population. That has been leapt on by some builders as a sort of new builders' charter, but we know that such forecasts are not to be taken literally—and they know that, too. Forecasts are no more than an attempt to extrapolate current trends. They are done every two years and vary widely. They fluctuate and change, so they provide no firm guidance about what should happen in future. We all believe in the importance of planning controls, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi). We have destiny in our hands; it is not left to the whim or the extrapolation of some expert from a census return. We can do something about this, and we should.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was not his usual charitable self in his comments about constituents when he suggested that they were all afflicted by this new disease called nimbyism. There may be one or two, and why not? After all, many people are like that wherever they are. It is to be expected. Some take rather short-term notice of their wider social obligations to the community and the nation's housing problems, but generally I do not find that to he the case.
The area I know best mostly encompasses a large chunk of east Sussex within the boundaries of Wealden district council, which is highly innovative. I shall tell my hon. Friends what we have done there, and this is no account of people stricken by nimbyism. Between 1976 and 1986, the district council areas saw a 13 per cent. increase in housing stock—about 6,000 new houses. During that period, the population increased by about 11 per cent.—at a time when the population in the nation as a whole was not increasing.
The district has many small towns. When I was first elected about 20 years ago, the town of Crowborough had a population of 8,000. In 10 years, it had increased to 17,000, and between now and 1996 we expect it to reach 22,000. The population will have increased three times in one generation. How many hon. Members could point to such an increase in population in the small or even medium-sized towns in their constituencies? It has not just happened in one town in my constituency. It has happened in other towns which people still like to call villages. Nor should we forget that it has happened in a constituency a large part of which has been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The phraseology used by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in his speech to the Bow Group can only

have exacerbated the anxieties that were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin). The pace shows no sign of slackening. We must gird our loins and stop our nimbyism. We must expect more building on green field sites. That will not mean infilling in my area. It will mean moving straight into areas of outstanding natural beauty. That is where the conflict lies. Not only my small corner of the south-east will be affected. As hon. Members who represent other parts of the south-east know, the problem will affect them, too. That passage in my right hon. Friend's speech is bound to increase anxiety.
The rural parts of some of the most beautiful areas of England are becoming semi-rural, and the semi-rural parts are becoming urbanised, with all the consequent costs and struggle in extending the infrastructure of schools, roads, health and social services, water and sewerage. All those extra services are required at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other members of the Administration tell us to be careful about our capital costs. The two do not go hand in hand.
What makes the problem much more difficult is circular 15/84. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare and I have been to see the Department about the five-year supply of land for housing, and we questioned the number of times that Department inspectors had overruled the district councils on appeal. Since our meeting, the position has improved. The difficulty with the circular is that it enjoins district councils always to maintain a five-year supply of land. No sooner are applications for development granted than more land must be included. We cannot continue year after year to pretend that the countryside is sacrosanct and that the quality of life in those villages and towns will be preserved if we must always have a five-year bank of land for building. It leaves no time to plan, let alone to finance the increasing demands of improving the infrastructure.
That is why in the excellent pamphlet—"This Pleasant Land"—to which I lent my name, although none of the writing was done by me, we say:
County or District Councils should have the power to prohibit substantial housing or other development in towns and villages where, for architectural, geographical or historical reasons, it would be unsuitable and have a deleterious effect on the existing environment.
The Government try to give the impression that their policies will meet the demand for housing, and their weapon is the release of more land. Of course, if there is no more land, there can be no more building. We see all the perils that I have mentioned, but we do not see the housing problem being solved. Building in the south will certainly not solve the nation's housing problems. Nor will it solve our economic or industrial problems. Land is limited, and the lesson is clear: the Department believes that the market force is in the direction of the south and it does not wish to do anything about it. In that case, its planning procedures are completely against those of the Secretaries of State for Employment and for Industry, the thrust of whose policies is to say, "We do not want the economy of the south-east to overheat. We wish to encourage the development of better housing and a better ambience in the inner cities so that the north and the midlands can become more attractive."
In my constituency, the people who need housing are being priced out of the market, despite the Government's planning policy. I do not know what has happened in the


council represented by the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith). It must be dozy. My district council does not believe that it must intervene or that it should build massive housing estates of the sort that litter the rural and semi-rural landscape. It believes that it can harness private enterprise by encouraging home ownership and house sales with schemes involving joint venture, do-it-yourself shared ownership and self-build. It pursues innovative policies such as mixed tenure schemes for the elderly, and offering property for leasehold purchase, shared ownership or renting. It gets into the same financial planning bed as building societies, housing associations and the like. Much progress has been made.

Mr. Andrew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Geoffrey Johnson-Smith: I would rather not. The hon. Gentleman spoke for 20 minutes, and I do not wish to do the same. Many other hon. Members wish to speak. He will probably discover that there is not much difference between us.
The district council is not unwilling to recognise the need for growth, nor has it lagged behind in providing the land necessary to meet housing needs. But our central point is that we are not meeting the housing needs of the very poor, and the threat of releasing more land causes tension and anxiety. Over-development not only causes invasion of the countryside but destroys the quality of life in our towns and villages.
Against that background, I urge the Government to pay more regard to the points that have been made—some in this debate and some outside the House. First, they should accept that, as there is no free market in land, planning controls should ensure a fairer balance between housing and environmental needs. That means accepting that there is too much substandard housing in London, which is one reason why people want to leave. The SERPLAN report says that housing renovation has been reduced and that if the current rates continue there will be a considerable deterioration in the housing stock. My area has experienced an influx of people from London who want better housing and better schools for their children. If we allow the housing stock to decline and do not begin to arrest the deterioration, we shall accelerate the trend.
One need only look at the north and south banks of the Thames as well as the eastern Thames corridor to realise what a disgraceful state they are in. We look to the Government to ensure, with a combination of public and private enterprise—just as Wealden district council has done—that we get cracking to improve those areas so that people will want to live there and industry will want to move there. Then people can live in a decent environment in an urban area without having to travel miles across the countryside to work. They want to be close to work, and we have the facilities to provide it.

Mr. Peter Hardy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: No. I do normally, but I want to finish my speech so that other hon. Members can speak.
The SERPLAN report says that the land supply for housing over the next five years is considerably more than

that required by structure plans. I do not see the need, therefore, for the huge demand for building on green field sites. The report continues:
For the decade 1981–1991, estimated house building activity will exceed earlier estimates used in preparing the strategy.
The SERPLAN reports points out—SERPLAN is supposed to be the expert in this regard—that,
for the first half of the 1990s county provisions, taken together, will meet over 60 per cent. of the regional guidance figure for the decade 1991–2001.
That is a pretty good record. Of course there are regions where not enough is being done. The Minister should turn his mind to those regions and not threaten places such as east Sussex.
The SERPLAN continues:
More attention needs to be paid … to access to housing.
The problem of access to housing raises the question of those who are just above the benefit level, who are confronted with difficulties in London and in my constituency.
The general sense of the debate is that we are not suffering from nimbyism; we are happy to play our part. We understand that in future there will be pressures and we shall do our best to meet them. There could not be a more co-operative group of people in the private or public sector than those in the area circumscribed by Wealden council, which forms a large part of my constituency. We shall not be able to co-operate with the necessary good will that the Government would expect; we shall not be able to preserve the heritage of our country unless we have a clearer definition of what the Government want to happen in our rural areas.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. The wind-up speeches are expected at 6.30 pm. Many hon. Members wish to speak, so I appeal again for very brief speeches.

Mr. Hal Miller: I shall try to be brief and I shall not refer to previous comments.
I should like to move the focus of the debate from the south to the midlands. I should not like it to be thought to be an exclusively southern preserve. I want to move from housing and discuss other aspects of planning coontrol. As to the housing issue, the arguments that I have heard are leading to the conclusion that we need another new town. I speak as an hon. Member who has had a new town constituency. New towns seem to be an answer to many of the points made about urban sprawl taking place beyond the green belt and in green fields. In case I am accused of trying to move the problem elsewhere, I should say that under the structure plan in my constituency we have unwillingly accepted a total of nearly 4,500 extra houses over the next three years.
With the completion of the M42 and the announcement that will shortly be made of the western orbital route around the west midlands conurbation—in the context of the local government boundary review—Birmingham city council is publishing proposals, which have not yet been put to the commission, to expand Birmingham as far as the motorways. It is expanding the boundaries not to preserve the green belt but with a view to development. I should like to hear an assurance from the Government about planning


in the green belt following the construction of motorways. I think that that might interest a number of other hon. Members.
In a letter dated 19 January 1985, the Minister's predecessor wrote to me to say:
The construction and eventual opening of that motorway will not affect the green belt status of the land in any way. If the motorway creates development pressures, then it will be the planning policies of the County and District councils that will have to handle those pressures.
The letter continues to refer to a policy statement about the M25. I fear that the contents of the letter will be set at naught if the ambitions of Birmingham and Solihull are realised. I should like clarification from the Minister about that matter and confirmation that there will be opportunity for public consultation—the views of those living in the area.
A further letter that I received dated 30 October 1985 said:
There will be extensive consultations, and the opportunity will be given for all local authorities concerned including those authorities with adjacent boundaries and for the public to put forward their views, and be consulted on any proposals that are put forward.
I must tell my hon. Friend the Minister that there is widespread public concern that the extension of Birmingham and Solihull will be put through by a local government boundary review body without adequate opportunity for public opinion to be tested in the affected areas. In an area surrounding a conurbation there are constant pressures on the land, often to allow it to go into disuse so that it may later form the basis of an acceptable application for planning permission. I am happy to say that in part of my constituency that progressive wastage is being countered by an urban fringe project to which the Government have contributed.
In my constituency we experience problems with massive poultry houses and widespread tipping. Those poultry houses are excluded, if they are of certain dimensions, from the operation of planning control under class VI of the general development order. As such, those buildings, which are not only of considerable floor area but reach up to 20 ft in height, surmounted by noisy electric fans that are in constant operation, may be built next to somebody's home without planning permission, consideration of disposal of the slurry or access of trade vehicles to the premises.
I understand only too well the pressure on the farming community and the need to look for alternative uses of land, but those factory units are a clear abuse of the general development order. I should like to hear that the proposals for stricter controls that were mentioned in a letter from the Minister dated 26 October 1987 are making progress.
As to tipping, land under the general development order land filled in for agricultural purposes is excluded from control. Thus, it falls to the county council as the waste disposal authority—the district council has no standing in the matter—to license the tipping operations. In effect, that is limited to setting conditions governing tipping, which prove extremely difficult to enforce. In practice, it has been found in my constituency ever since I represented it that those tipping operations encompassed not merely filling of the land but domestic and industrial waste and occasionally poisonous chemicals.
The controls are not adequate to deal with the problem, quite apart from the question of damage done to roads and

verges and the flooding occasioned by the use of country lanes by traffic for which they were not designed. It appears that the tipper makes no financial contribution to the cost of repairing or widening those roads. It must be borne by the ratepayer, who has not only the nuisance but the penalty of having to pay for it. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, when considering the general development order, will give consideration to the question of financial contributions.
Finally, there is the question of councils awarding themselves planning permission, which I believe can lead to abuse. My district council gave itself planning permission for a hotel on a set of allotments while turning down a private application. In those circumstances, it is difficult to convince the developer that the council's decision was unbiased. I hope that when the planning controls are reviewed consideration will be given to that difficult question.

Mr. Andrew Hunter: I shall be extremely brief and ultra-selective so that others have the opportunity to take part in the debate.
I believe that the Government's broad strategy is absolutely right. Urban and suburban regeneration and development should be the main thrust of housing and planning policy and the green belt must remain sacrosanct, although there will be a need for some topping up by green field development to accommodate the 2 million additional households that will need accommodation by the end of the century.
Two further points have been insufficiently stressed in the debate so far. All Members are significantly influenced by constituency experience, and I am no exception. In my constituency, the demand for housing is overwhelmingly locally generated. It is not a matter of people flooding in from other parts of the country. We had the major development in the 1970s and early 1980s. Now another generation is growing up and its demand for housing must be met. Insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that we are not drawing people down from the midlands, the north, or wherever, but predominantly seeking to provide housing in Basingstoke for Basingstoke people.
Insufficient attention has also been paid to the revival of the rural economy, although my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) alluded to this briefly. I believe that the problem is far greater and cannot be considered in isolation from questions of planning. To solve the economic problems of agriculture and to restore balance to village communities, the release of some green field sites is necessary. Ironically, many of the constituents who write to us protesting about planning applications are the very people who complain about village schools being closed, bus routes cut and shops closed down and sold.
I suspect that in this context my views differ slightly from those of some of my hon. Friends in that I am not entirely afraid of green field development. On the contrary, I believe that it has a significant part to play in planning policy and that some of the fears expressed are not entirely justified.

Mr. Patrick Ground: My hon. Friends the Members for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) have


considerable experience in planning matters. I very much hope that the points that they have made today will be taken into account as I find myself in full agreement with almost all that they have said.
As has already been mentioned in several speeches, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a speech on these matters last week. I especially welcome those passages in which he spoke of the policy to maintain the green belt. It is important that they be fully publicised as they have not so far received a very fair press and people have been left with a somewhat confused impression of what my right hon. Friend was saying about the green belt.
The Government's record in this respect is good. Appeal decisions and structure plan decisions have maintained the green belt. I welcome especially the comments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the needs of people living in towns. He said:
They need parks and green spaces and gardens too and resent the implication that all development can just be dumped in their back yard. Remember too that the concept of green belt was to give 'green lungs' for city dwellers.
I presume that that also covers metropolitan open land—the open space within London recognised by my right hon. Friend's predecessors as of strategic importance for the metropolis as a whole.
I am not satisfied that the Government's commitment to the green belt and to metropolitan open land is fully understood either by the people who are to benefit from it or by the press and the developers. It is important to consider why that is so. One reason, in my view, is that whenever the Secretary of State is confronted with a thoroughly outrageous planning application to develop green belt or open space, perhaps in a massive way, he feels constrained to adopt a policy of silence in the belief that he has no power to act until the matter comes to him for an appeal decision.
Even when a proposal is plainly contrary to a local plan or development plan, the Secretary of State feels bound to go through the whole paraphernalia, if necessary, of a massive appeal involving great expense, a great deal of inspector time and considerable cost for all concerned. For example, shopping malls have been proposed for green belt sites. Adjacent to my constituency—I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Sir B. Hayhoe) is equally concerned about this—there is a massive proposal to develop metropolitan open land at Osterley with a large housing estate and large-scale shopping and industrial buildings. Since 1963, a succession of planning applications has been made in relation to that land and local people have repeatedly felt obliged to raise money to fight the proposals. I believe that if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State interpreted his powers differently he could help immeasurably in making all of that unnecessary.
I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, therefore, to re-examine his powers. A large school of thought considers that he has power to refuse to entertain a planning appeal in respect of a hopeless case—that is, if he decides that planning permission cannot possibly be granted, he has power to refuse to entertain an appeal. The Department of the Environment interprets that as being limited to legal power, but it can be interpreted as covering situations in which the proposal is totally at variance with planning policy. I ask my right hon. Friend to re-examine

his powers and to consider whether he should refuse to entertain some of the really hopeless planning appeals involving green belt sites and metropolitan open space. That would be of great convenience to the people who were intended to benefit from the policies and would achieve a real saving in inspector time. It would also help to make the Government's policy on these matters more clearly understood. I therefore strongly urge that that course be considered.

Mr. Nicholas Baker: This excellent debate has evinced unanimity on the need for greater certainty in our planning system. We also need much greater political will if we are to achieve the kind of certainty that both developers and those seeking to protect the environment wish to see.
I question the assessment made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about demand. Too often, the figures appear to be estimates made by house builders rather than an assessment of actual need, as the hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) pointed out. There are still 600,000 empty homes in this country. Much more work should be done on that. Our planning system should enable us to preserve our countryside, enjoy a high standard of living and modernise our industry. It should allow us to have our cake and eat it; I do not shrink from saying that.
Many of my hon. Friends have argued—none better than my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin)—that the planning system is failing the nation. First, it is failing to protect green fields from overdevelopment. Secondly, it is failing to promote the development of inner cities. Thirdly, it is failing to provide for low-cost housing, which we want in all our constituencies. Fourthly, it is accelerating, if not promoting, the movement of population which has very serious social and infrastructure problems attached to it.
I shall restrict myself to commenting on the provision of low-cost housing, which I believe to be particularly important. The present system is failing to provide such housing, and the problem is not being addressed. Even in this debate it has been suggested that the overdevelopment of green fields would somehow enable us to deal with the problem. It would not. We must get the private rented sector going. More needs to be done and more finance provided for housing associations and sheltered housing schemes.
Furthermore, planning authorities need much greater quality control. For example, they need the power to order greater density in certain parts. I mean not only in the centre of Peckham in inner London, where I was a candidate for five years, but in the centres of our villages and towns, whether in the middle of Dorset or anywhere else. Lastly, I believe that the movement of population is extremely dangerous and gives rise to great social problems.
I would like the Secretary of State to change the statutory presumption in favour of development and to uphold local authority planning decisions to a greater extent. As he knows, I think that there is an urgent need to modernise the circulars. I want planning authorities to have much greater powers to control the quality of development and a tighter system of structure plans once


those structure plans have been agreed between central Government and local authorities. Our planning system is failing the nation and it needs to he changed.

Mr. Clive Soley: I am glad that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) won the ballot and chose this subject. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) closed by saying that he would attempt to keep the issue in the public eye until the Government do something about it. I assure him that he will have my absolute support.
I say that for two important reasons. Sadly, the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet ducked one of them—the whole question of demographic change—in his motion. I make no apology for saying that the second has to do with the political changes that that implies. That is why the Conservative party is so troubled by the change, which is doing to the Tory party what previous demographic changes did to us. Conservative Members must think through the consequences of that in order to understand what is happening.
The desperate crisis in housing in this country relates to the planning problem. The crisis has come upon us largely because the present Secretary of State and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Hesletine), who sets himself up in opposition to him, created it between them. Both of them undermined local authorities' ability to provide and plan effectively. The right hon. Member for Henley has the audacity to attack the present Secretary of State for setting loose the Frankenstein's monster that he designed.
Conservative Members claim that they are innocent of any responsibility, but the right hon. Member for Henley was the Secretary of State who ordered Berkshire, his own county, to increase the housing supply by 8,000. Furthermore, although he now says that civil servants in the Ministry of Defence should go north, he was the Secretary of State who cancelled the previous Labour Government's order to move the Property Services Agency up to Middlesbrough, which would have meant 3,000 jobs going to the Middlesbrough area.
The present Secretary of State has nothing to write home about either. He is another disaster area. Consider what is happening in Hammersmith. The Hammersmith Broadway development is one of the largest developments in an inner-city area. The appeal against it is already won. The inspector says that it is not appropriate and that there is not enough housing. What does the Secretary of State do? He overrules that decision, even though the developer and London Regional Transport, which proposed the plan, have agreed that it is not appropriate. Everyone agrees that the development is not appropriate but the Secretary of State steps in and overrules the decision, and one of the options that would have provided low-cost housing to take the strain off the areas about which Conservative Members complain. I certainly complain about my area, which has 10,000 people on the housing waiting list and 700 people in bed and breakfasts. When we left office there were none in bed and breakfast and only 4,000 on the waiting list and I thought that was bad enough. The Conservative party has created a nightmare.

Mr. Hardy: There is another monstrous likely development. There is a serious fear that sites for opencast mining will be identified and agreed without the public

having to be informed and the normal planning process pursued. That means that anyone who considers their green belt an attractive area—I can think of several green belt areas in my own constituency that are enjoyed by local residents—may lose that enjoyment without having the opportunity to protest as the residents of Hammersmith have protested. Would my hon. Friend care to suggest that the Minister comments on that in her reply?

Mr. Soley: I shall not only suggest that the Minister comments on it. We should do something about making the developers pay some of the costs of the inquiries—an argument advanced by some Conservative Members and one with which I would agree.
The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare said:
If the Government say that because a house can be sold it should be built, then I am afraid that this is an issue on which we will take them on.
So much for this unreconstructed free marketeer. The free market can operate, but not if it affects Tory voters. We know that in housing and planning, as in a number of activities, the free market can be an unmitigated disaster unless we take an overall view of what is happening in the economy and in the nation generally.
I am sad that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet did not address the real issue in greater detail. I agree with him that we need local planning controls and involvement, but we also need a strategy for Greater London, for the south-east of England and for the nation. That is where the Government have failed and where the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet has failed in his motion. Uneven economic development is hardly touched upon. The hon. Gentleman does not mention the fact that it will cause a crisis in the south-east.
The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) was right to say that he needed low-cost housing in his area, but he is not getting it. If he goes around Old Basing, he will find houses selling for between £150,000 and £250.000. They are certainly not being sold to those on low incomes in his area, and he knows it. 'What do the Government do? They break up the Greater London Council—

Mr. Hunter: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Soley: It would be at the expense of the Minister, I fear. I am not attacking the hon. Gentleman. I am simply saying that houses in Old Basing are selling for £150,000 to £250,000. They are not going to people on low incomes—a point that the hon. Gentleman made himself. The Government abolished the GLC, yet the GLC was one of the first organisations, along with some of the universities, to spot the fact that demographic change was crucial. We are witnessing something akin to what is happening in Los Angeles. At the very least, we are heading back to the development of new towns by accident.
I suspect that there is a far greater movement even than that, and that demographic change is moving people out of the cities back into rural areas far faster than ever before. It is probably the obverse of what happened in the last century or two, when people were moving from the rural areas into the cities. If that is right, we are looking at the possibility of an urban parkland stretching from Kent to Devon; the idea of a 250..mile limit like that for Los Angeles ceases to be a joke and becomes a reality.
It has suddenly occurred to Conservatives that this has political implications for them. About 450,000 new dwellings are needed in the south-east by the turn of the


century. About 150,000, at the very least, are needed in London. The political pressure is building up. The hon. Members for Basingstoke, for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) and for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) already have differences of opinion about whether the present Secretary of State or the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) is right. That is why there are little articles in their local papers saying either, "I back the present Secretary of State for the Environment," or, "I back the previous Secretary of State. He is right." That is the trap for them.
The problem is not just about nice views out of windows but about job availability, environmental protection and enhancement and, above all, housing. The housing market in the south-east is frightening. The companies building the Channel tunnel employ engineers from all over the world. These companies have to offer to pay their engineers' mortgages because they cannot attract them without offering that incentive. In the Wirral, British Nuclear Fuels plc made some trainees redundant and one company found that potential recruits could not bridge the housing gap.
According to a report by Income Data Services,
One manager admitted … that he 'fiddled' young employees' mortgage applications by counting overtime pay as basic earnings.
The Employment Institute has a similar point and reiterates what the IDS recognises, that there is a need for more low-cost housing in the form of council or housing association housing. Again, the Government are damned by their own statistics. There has been a two-thirds cut in council housing in Britain. In two years, only 138—not 138,000, 13,800 or even 1,380—new houses were built by housing associations in rural Britain, yet such houses have been sold off in rural areas faster than anywhere else because they are attractive to buy. If nothing new is built, the people who live in those areas have had it.
The 1981 census revealed that 70 per cent. of properties in some Cornish villages were unoccupied most of the year—that is what I mean by the "urban park" stretching for 250 miles. There is not one young family in a village in Dorset called Worth Matravers. The majority of properties there are second homes, selling for £90,000. The average manual worker's pay is between £80 and £90 a week. What are such people to do? What will happen to market rents when the Housing Bill comes into effect? The Minister can deal with that matter. The market rent on a property of £90,000 must be at least £200 a week, which is more than twice the average wage in that area. This is devastating.
The position is horrendous for what are, in effect, new clearances. Local authority dwellings have been sold at a much faster rate in rural areas than elsewhere. The private rented dwellings are often tied housing, and the Housing Bill will make a marginal difference to that. One article describes the position in Purbeck, Dorset and refers to
Robert and Lesley Gillespie's three-bedroomed cottage in Langton Matravers.
The article states:
Until February it housed them, three daughters, a son, two sons-in-law and three grandchildren. One daughter and son-in-law have gone with their baby to a winter letting in Swanage, which they must leave when the tourist season begins. The other young family has been told that if they were 'less choosy' about where they wanted to live they would be offered a council house 20 miles away in Bere Regis. There is

no bus service back to the son-in-law's job in Langton, and he cannot drive. Forced to choose between housing and work, he asks: 'Why should people like us, who've always lived here, have to move out to make way for people who are just lucky enough to have a bit more money than the rest of us?".
It is more than "a bit more". Whether it is a house for £150,000 or £250,000 in Old Basing or for £90,000 in Dorset, such people do not have a cat in hell's chance of buying or renting; I see that I am taking one or two Conservative Members with me. What the Government have done to the low-cost rented accommodation sector is catastrophic. One million homes have been lost from the rented sector since 1980, half from the Government's much-loved private rented sector. Already half are outside the terms of the Rent Acts, yet the rate of decline is accelerating.
In London there are organisations such as the Campaign for Homes in Central London, and we have written to the Minister to try to do something about the provision of homes in London. We should not have this joke from Conservative Members about the urban areas using up all the derelict land. There is derelict land to be used, but I say as a Londoner that I love the country—I want some country in London. I am fed up with the idea that we should all either move out to the country or face an urban sprawl, whether in the suburbs or in the inner cities.
The Government could do a lot worse than look at the policy put forward by Rural Voice, which would provide a way forward on some rural issues. We are faced with the horrendous possibility that housing for people on low incomes—whether rented or purchased, private or public—will not be available for a number of years. Even if the Government do a complete about-turn on their present policies and design more bizarre and taxpayer-funded Rachmanite schemes such as the business expansion scheme, the ability to increase the supply of rented property at low cost in less than three or four years is minimal. This will hit us devastatingly hard.
Why are there more homeless than ever before? Why are people packed into bed-and-breakfast accommodation? Why are council lists over-subscribed when people prefer council properties to private rented properties, as we know from the surveys? The reason is that the Government have slashed council house building. The Conservative-controlled Association of District Councils makes no bones about it. The ADC says, "The Government have sold off all our properties. They are not letting us build again." By not letting councils build again, the Government are destroying the rural communities, as the ADC rightly points out. That is what is upsetting the Conservative party, and it will end up upsetting it even more.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mrs. Marion Roe): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) on his speech. I welcome the opportunity presented by the debate to set out some of the key features of the Government's policy on planning matters.
Forty years of the post-war town and country planning system have served us well. The modern planning system had its origins in a perceived need to regulate development proposals that did not have proper regard to their impact or consequences on the locality. The present Government


have successfully directed their energies to the encouragement of economic growth and enterprise, but we have always recognised that the planning system must also provide an effective mechanism for protecting amenity and the environment.
Much has been said today and in the past few months about the pressure for development in the south, south-east and rural areas. The terms of the motion recognise the strength of our policy on green belts.
In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Miller), I make no apologies for restating our commitment to the protection of green belts or for repeating that, since 1979, the area of approved green belt has more than doubled, from some 1·8 million acres to 4·5 million acres. Furthermore, we have said that developers who persist in pursuing applications for major developments in the green belt to appeal and through lengthy inquiries can expect to have costs awarded against them, as well as having their applications turned down.
However tight the control, some individuals will be tempted to find ways round the system, and that often concerns the public. Although local authorities have a wide range of powers to enforce planning controls, for a variety of reasons they do not always seem to be able to use them effectively.
We have recently carried out a review of the Department's procedures, with a view to improving efficiency in the handling of enforcement appeals. The action plan will be published soon. But, clearly, some local authorities think that the present powers are too difficult to operate or that, in some respects, they are inadequate. We are urgently setting in hand a policy review of the enforcement regime that I hope will lead to improvements in its effectiveness.
More recently, the focus of concern has shifted. Both here and outside, my colleagues and I are being pressed to adopt policies that would force all development into older urban areas and prevent any development elsewhere in the south-east. Paradoxically, we are simultaneously receiving representations to the effect that development pressure within urban areas is resulting in unsympathetic development that is changing the character of outer suburbs.
From rural areas, we are increasingly hearing complaints about the lack of housing that local people can afford. All those are real concerns. But we cannot have it all ways. We cannot simultaneously avoid any high-density housing developments in rural areas and make provision for the low-cost housing that is so clearly needed in those areas.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Roe: I am sorry. I cannot give way.
We cannot simultaneously preserve the integrity of the suburbs and refuse to allow development on new sites. It is precisely because they are real conflicts to resolve that the planning system is so vital. The reality is that pressure for development and, in particular, for new housing provision is a result of changes taking place within society. Because we live in and cherish the rights of a free society, we cannot control such changes, but must come to terms with them.
Several factors contribute to the demand for housing in the south-east. Migration from outside the region is one of the least significant. Far more important are factors such

as increased life expectancy and fitness in old age, higher divorce rates, and the increasing tendency for people to marry later. That means more and smaller households. It needs to be understood that demand is coming mainly from within the south-east. If we deliberately curtail the supply of housing, those who will suffer will be those who are least able to afford the high prices that will result—for example, young people setting up their first home. In that case, there is unlikely to be a sudden widespread change in social attitudes or wholesale migration out of the region, but there might well be an increase in homelessness and in other social problems.
On the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member For Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin), my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has invited SERPLAN to consider the revised household projections provided by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Those projections update earlier forecasts in the light of more recent trends. At present the forecasts are for discussion; they are not being imposed on the authorities concerned.
My right hon. Friend will shortly be meeting SERPLAN to discuss the effects of the latest projections of population and household formation on housing land supply in the south-east for the period to the end of the century. In his letter of 11 May to the chairman of SERPLAN, my right hon. Friend drew attention to three salient points about these projections. First, forecast housing needs will arise predominantly from the projected increase in population and in household formation within the south-east and Greater London, because of the factors that I mentioned earlier; secondly, forecast housing needs could easily be met if house building continues at the average level of the past few years, so we do not need to think in terms of a huge increase in house building in the south-east; and, thirdly, there is no reason to think that those needs can be met only at the expense of the green belt, areas of outstanding natural beauty, or any other statutorily protected areas. Of course the need to protect the countryside "for its own sake", as put forward in the ALURE package, still stands.
I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and the hon. Members for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) that, in the Housing Bill, we have introduced measures that will encourage the revival of the private rented housing market and provide for an enhanced role for the housing association movement.
It is often suggested that we should divert development pressure into urban areas by encouraging the use of derelict or unused sites in such areas, or that we should direct development towards regions outside the south-east. I am delighted to tell my lion. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) that the assistance of urban regeneration is one of the five purposes of green belts, set out in paragraph 4 of planning policy guidance note 2, which was published in January. Planning policy guidance notes are becoming the main source of Government advice and guidance, in clearer and more accessible form than circulars.
Of course we are encouraging development to take place in urban areas. Our inner-city initiatives are playing an important part in releasing land for development. Derelict land grant is helping to reclaim and bring back into use nearly 1,000 hectares of land every year. Since 1979, the proportion of grant spent in the inner cities has increased from 7 per cent. to 30 per cent. The success of the


London Docklands development corporation in bringing development into an area of industrial dereliction is evident to anyone who visits the area. Much of the land made available by the corporation is providing sites for housing.
With another nine urban development corporations in existence, in addition to those in London docklands and Merseyside, we can expect to see more under-used urban land available for development. We recently announced a consultants' study into the scope forhousing development on large derelict sites bordering the Thames in east London, which, if they were brought back into use, could provide land for 20,000 to 30,000 houses.
Much development does take place on land that has previously been developed. Nationally, 46 per cent. of land used for new housing is reused sites or vacant land in urban areas. 55 per cent. of housing in London and the south-east is on such sites. The initiatives that I have described make a significant contribution to meeting the need for housing land in that way. But, despite all that is being achieved, it will be possible to meet the demad for new housing only if some carefully selected sites are also provided. To their credit, most local authorities in the south-east recognise that, and are matching up to their responsibilities. We cannot force development into inner cities, but if we did, and if sufficient such land were available—which it is not—it is questionable whether the environmental damage and the social consequences would be tolerable.
We must not neglect the needs of the rural areas. From visits to many parts of the country, I am particularly aware of housing problems faced in rural areas, especially by young people on low incomes seeking a first home. I am grateful to hon. Members representing such areas who have drawn some of their problems to my attention. The Government are looking to see what measures might be taken to help, and we hope to make an announcement shortly.

Mr. Robert Key: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mrs. Roe: I am terribly sorry; I cannot give way.
Our primary aim has been to create the right conditions for the market, by stimulating the potential for growth based on private sector initiatives and resources. Equally important, it is no part of Government policy to direct people where to live or where firms should set up. That would risk losing development altogether.
So far I referred mainly to more strategic issues and to the kinds of national and regional guidance that are reflected in county structure plans. It is important that plans should make proper provision for development and that they should be kept up to date. Where that is done, there will, I believe, be less cause for anxiety about the possible development of sites not identified in plans. Local plans provide the means of working out sensible solutions to the problems of reconciling the needs of development and the interests of conservation. It is disturbing that the coverage of local plans is still incomplete. It is the local plan that makes detailed allocations of land and which should form the basis of most day-to-day planning

decisions. But large areas of the country, even in those parts of the south-east that are under the greatest pressure for development, have no local plan.
Some local planning authorities seem to prefer to be without a detailed local plan, so that development proposals can be considered ad hoc as they come forward. Other authorities have adopted a practice of preparing "informal" or "bottom drawer" plans as a basis of development control, without subjecting them to proper procedures of public consultation and formal adoption. Neither is a satisfactory alternative to the preparation of a proper local plan. Informal documents and ad hoc decisions give no satisfactory guidance to developers, and afford no reassurance to local people about the overall pattern of development. Where there is no local plan, the local authority may find itself in a weak position in rejecting development proposals that should not be approved.
Likewise, the Secretary of State and his inspectors are greatly assisted in dealing with appeals if they can be considered within the framework of a relevant and up-to-date local plan. Indeed, inspectors necessarily take account of a local plan if it is up to date and formally adopted.
The Government's consultation paper on the future of development plans, published in September 1986, proposed that there should be comprehensive coverage of districtwide development plans throughout the country. The Government are confirmed in that view by the response to the consultation. We shall shortly be issuing for consultation a new draft circular on those lines, drawing local authorities' attention to the role of local plans.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet is concerned at the impact of unsympathetic development on some residential areas in the suburbs of London. He has proposed the establishment of special planning areas for areas that do not justify designation as conservation areas but which, nevertheless, have a character worthy of protection. It is important that we should not devalue the status and protection available in conservation areas. An area does not require any special designation to enjoy protection against inappropriate development, as normal planning control already provides it. In our view, special planning areas would add another layer to the planning system and to the bureaucratic apparatus needed to administer it. It is not realistic for national planning policy guidance to prescribe solutions for what are essentially local issues about the scale of development in particular areas.
I believe that the Government's policies for green belts and for protecting the countryside deserve and attract support from all quarters in the House. The concept of green belts is enduring and enjoys widespread popularity. If those policies are to be effective they must be balanced by equally effective policies for development. Conservation alone is not enough. Housing development is not a form of environmental pollution; it is about people, families and home ownership. The planning system exists both to facilitate development to assist national economic development and to conserve our natural—

It being Seven o'clock, proceedings on the motion lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13(2) (Precedence of Government business).

Orders of the Day — Civil Evidence (Scotland) Bill [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

7 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This morning I was in Falkirk to inaugurate the building of the new sheriff court; if the Bill becomes an Act the new evidential requirements will be practised in that court.
The Bill is the Government's response to the Scottish Law Commission's report on corroboration, hearsay and related matters. That report was published in May 1986. The report is part of the Scottish Law Commission's overall consideration of the law of evidence. That subject was included in the Scottish Law Commission's first programme of law reform.
I am sure that hon. Members who represent Scotland and elsewhere and who are present would wish me to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the detailed consideration which has been given to this particular matter by the commission. The House would not, of course, expect anything less. Since its establishment by the Law Commissions Act 1965, the commission has produced a substantial number of reports dealing with a considerable range of issues. Those issues cover a wide spectrum of activity, some involving complex and technical legal matters, others involving matters of great social importance.
The Scottish Law Commission was set up by section 2 of the Law Commissions Act 1965 for the purpose of promoting the reform of the law of Scotland. Those somewhat formal words might suggest that the proposals put forward by the Commission are restricted to technical legal matters—"lawyers' law"—as some might put it. As I have suggested, that is far from the case. One has only to think of measures such as the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 and the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 and family law legislation to realise that the areas of law dealt with by the Scottish Law Commission involve, to a considerable extent, the individual people of Scotland. The commission's work goes wider than that, as it can, in concert with its counterpart, the Law Commission for England and Wales, produce joint reports on matters of a United Kingdom interest and application. A recent example of such a report is the joint report on choice of law rules in marriage.
I think that the general regard in which the work of the commission is held can be ascertained from the rate of implementation of its reports. In its 22nd annual report the commission comments in paragraph 1.21:
the rate of implementation by Parliament of our proposals continues to be a source of much encouragement to us".
I have worked out that, since its establishment in 1965, the Commission has produced 107 reports. That includes of course the commission's programmes of law reform and its annual reports. Of the 82 proposals that have been made for reform of the law, 72 have already been

implemented and a number of those remaining unimplemented, include recent reports, one of which is the report that we are considering.
I am sure that my colleagues on the Front Bench will not take it amiss if I say that the Government cannot claim complete credit for the number of reports recently implemented. Over the years, a number of Scottish Law Commission reports have been implemented by private Members' Bills. In the past, as a Back Bencher, I played a part in the removal of the stigma of illegitimacy by promoting the Law Reform (Parent and Child) (Scotland) Bill to implement the recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission in its report on illegitimacy. For that Bill I even rated a minor mention along with the noble and learned Lord Wilson of Langside, in the Scottish Law Commission's 21st annual report covering its work during 1985–86. I have been glad to support the work of the commission and to have the good fortune to secure t he enactment of some of its proposed reforms. So it is especially interesting now to be involved in the law reform process once again.
Hon. Members will know that reports of the Scottish Law Commission generally proceed after a comprehensive consultation process. That usually involves the issue of a consultative memorandum to interested people and bodies. Views on the proposals are then taken into account by the commission in coming up with its final recommendations contained in the report.
The Bill is no exception to that arrangement. in 1980 the commission produced consultative memorandum No. 46 inviting comments on propositions for reform of many aspects of the law of evidence. The commission" in paragraph 1.1 of the report, expressed its gratitude for the many constructive comments it received. In preparing its report, the commission also had the benefit of a research, paper on the law of evidence prepared by Sheriff Macphail. I know that that paper is highly regarded by those with an interest in the law of evidence. Indeed, I note that the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) has a copy.
The report on which the Bill is based is therefore clearly the result of careful consideration by the Scottish Law Commission. It is worth making the point that when the report was submitted to my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate he also arranged for views to be sought on the commission's actual recommendations. Those views were, of course, carefully considered by my noble and learned Friend before he formulated the policy now contained in the Bill. On Second Reading in the other place my noble and learned Friend paid tribute to those who had taken the trouble to comment on the consultation carried out on his behalf. I have no hesitation in echoing his tributes. The comprehensive consultation carried out by the commission and by my noble and learned Friend, the detailed scrutiny of the proposals and recommendations and the constructive comments and criticisms received have meant that the Bill has what I believe to be a very sound base for the reforms contained in it.
It would be for the convenience of the House if I took this early opportunity to make it clear that the Scottish Law Commission's proposals are concerned with evidence in civil proceedings only. As the title of the Bill implies, it does not in any way disturb the existing requirements on corroboration and hearsay in criminal proceedings.
In arriving at the recommendations contained in its report, the Scottish Law Commission had in mind two guiding principles:
First, that the law should be simplified to the greatest degree consistent with the proper functioning of a law of evidence; and, secondly, that as a general rule all evidence should be admissible unless there is good reason for treating it as inadmissible.
To my mind those are principles with which all hon. Members present could readily agree. I think that they would commend themselves particularly to those of us who have sought to unravel some of the existing complexities of the law of evidence while advising clients or trying to present a case in court.
When the Scottish Law Commission came to apply those guiding principles to the existing law of evidence, it found that in certain elements the rule requiring corroboration and the rule against hearsay could present barriers to the presentation of an otherwise good case. The commission took the view that, although corroboration had been regarded as a safeguard against the acceptance of unreliable evidence, its consideration of current law and practice led it to conclude that a formal requirement of corroboration was not in the overall interests of justice. It arrived at similar conclusions on the rule against hearsay. It found that the development of the rule against hearsay had led to its acquiring qualifications and exceptions that made the law complex and difficult. It involved fine and difficult distinctions. The commission came to the view that the exclusion of hearsay could, in many cases, lead to a risk of injustice.
I shall deal later in a little more detail with the difficulties of the present law. Suffice it to say for the moment that the commission recommended in broad terms the abolition of the requirement for corroboration and the abolition of the rule against hearsay. The aim is to achieve a situation in which, in very general terms, a court should have available to it all the relevant evidence from whatever source. The Bill implements those recommendations and achieves that aim in clauses 1 and 2.
Having set the scene, as it were, I think that it would be helpful to the House if I dealt with the Bill in detail.
Clause 1 implements the first main recommendations of the Scottish Law Commission, which is to abolish the requirement for corroboration in civil proceedings. I think that it would be helpful to hon. Members if I briefly ran over the position under the present law. This will, I think, serve to illustrate why the House should, in the Government's view, look favourably on the abolition of corroboration.
As hon. Members know, under the present law the general rule is that to be successful a party must establish his ground of action by providing certain crucial facts. The general rule is that a crucial fact cannot be proved by the testimony of one witness alone. That witness's testimony must be supported by evidence from another source—in other words, corroborative evidence.
For example, let us suppose that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) were to engage a builder to construct a wall and laid down requirements that it should be a 6 ft high wall made of red brick. Let us suppose also that the result was that the hon. Member found that the wall had been built of yellow brick and to an entirely different specification. Now, if the hon.

Member was a prudent man, he would have had all the specifications written down in a written contract. However, if he had not written it down, because the pressures of parliamentary business were too great and he had conducted the matter quickly by telephone, he would not have any corroboration of the fact that he had requested the wall to be built according to certain specifications and colour. In those circumstances, he would have little chance of success if he pursued the matter in law against the builder.
Let me make it clear that I do not for one minute discount the importance of corroboration. However—this is one of the key factors in my argument—what we are considering is whether, as a matter of law, someone should always be precluded from success if he is unable to provide corroboration on every point necessary for the establishment of his case. Hon. Members will, I am sure, agree that such a situation should be avoided if the law of evidence is to cater for the proper resolution of disputes in civil proceedings.
If we were to look at the development of case law in this area, we would come across instances where the courts have found it possible, when satisfied as to a witness's reliability, to be satisfied also that corroborative evidence can be found in what the Scottish Law Commission describes as
circumstantial evidence of flimsy or doubtful import".
Some hon. Members may ask why, if the courts are, in certain circumstances, prepared to find corroboration so readily, the requirement needs to go. However, although such instances can be found, equally there are instances where a court has been compelled, however unwillingly, to come to a decision based on the absence of corroboration. There is therefore a view that in certain circumstances an otherwise honest and credible case is doomed to failure—indeed, is doomed never to be heard—simply because the often technical barriers of corroboration cannot be surmounted.
Parliament has sought to remedy this situation, albeit in piecemeal fashion. For example, in section 9 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968— [Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) was a Minister involved in that legislation.
In section 9 of that Act the requirement for corroboration was removed in actions for damages for personal injuries. More recently, under the powers in section 2(2) of the Divorce Jurisdiction, Court Fees and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1983, my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate made orders prescribing undefended divorce cases based on two and five-year separations as actions in which corroboration is not required.

Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garcadden): I am encouraging the hon. Gentleman to go on rather more lengthily than he otherwise would. He referred to the debate on section 9 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968. No doubt he will have read of the splendid attack on that led by the present Lord Wylie from the Conservative Front Bench, and will remember that the Conservatives voted to exclude that clause from the Bill. I wonder why there is the change of mind.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am glad to say that we are only too happy to learn from experience. When the Bill


was submitted in the other Chamber, both Front Benches gave it a warm welcome. One of the key points was that for over 20 years the Act had been successful in that respect and there had not been any problems.
The House will see, therefore, that the removal of the requirement for corroboration is not a novel idea. In the cases I have just mentioned, the provisions have worked well and have not had any adverse effect on the administration of justice. In addition, hon. Members will be aware that certain types of civil dispute, involving matters of considerable importance to the parties, are determined by tribunals and inquiries. Many of these bodies operate under their own procedural rules in which their deliberations are not bound by the strict rules of evidence applied in the courts. For example, under the rules of procedure for Scottish industrial tribunals, a tribunal is not
bound by any enactment or rule of law relating to the admissibility of evidence in proceedings before the courts of law".
The position of tribunals is now well established under our present law as an effective and efficient means of resolving certain types of dispute. I have already mentioned the important role that they play in matters which are of substantial importance to the parties involved. Their effectiveness is due in no small measure to their ability to consider all relevant evidence, even though that evidence may be uncorroborated or may be hearsay.
The Bill preserves that important feature of tribunal proceedings, while still allowing the conduct of their proceedings to be specifically regulated by their own tailormade rules.
The example and experience of tribunal proceedings is a useful piece of evidence in support of the relaxation of corroboration and hearsay requirements in all civil proceedings.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether what he has said applies in the case of someone wishing to make a complaint relating, for example, to defective dental treatment? Do not the regulations and rules relating to tribunals of that nature require corroboration? Does the Bill do anything to relax that requirement?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The tribunals are able to make their own rules, and in certain cases the parties concerned come to an agreement. The Bill would generally relax the rules relating to civil procedures, but, as the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East has said, there may be exceptions. I will look at the case he has mentioned and write to him in due course.

Mr. Dewar: The hon. Gentleman is making a virtue of the fact that the Bill ensures that, unless special arrangements are made by the parties to reinstate hearsay and corroboration as it is now, they will have the advantage of relaxation. If I remember rightly, that came about as the result of an amendment from Lord Morton of Shuna and not from the Government.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I make it clear to the hon. Member for Garscadden that we welcome good ideas from wherever they come, and the hon. Member's colleague, Lord Morton of Shuna, welcomed the Bill in the House of Lords. There is no dispute between us on that point.
When the Scottish Law Commission went to consultation on its proposals, the majority of commentators were in favour of the abolition of the requirement for corroboration. That was true also of the consultation carried out on behalf of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate.
For the reasons that I have outlined, the Scottish Law Commission concluded that the requirement for corroboration should be removed in civil proceedings. I fully endorse that recommendation, and take the same view as the Faculty of Advocates. In responding to consultation on behalf of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate, it said that the retention of the requirement for corroboration
is out of keeping with the general trend in the development of the law of evidence to remove technical obstacles from the path of truth finding".
I should say to the House that the rules on corroboration and hearsay have substantial practical implications.
The requirement for corroboration can lead to unnecessary expense, delays and inconvenience. One difficulty in this area of the law is that it is not always easy to judge what are the essential facts that must be proved and thus require corroboration. Such a fact may be only a relatively minor link in the chain of evidence and, indeed, may not be contested by the other party. However, a party's advisers may feel that there would be substantial risk of the entire case collapsing because what at first appeared to be a minor point was uncorroborated. That leads to their producing as much corroborative evidence as possible with consequent extra work, expense and taking up of court time.
Under the Bill, while a party would still seek to produce corroboration on major points in dispute, he would be able to do without such corroborative evidence on matters that, although technically essential, are, in practice, formalities. If that were so, I believe that there would be valuable savings both for the parties in preparing cases and in court time.
I appreciate what the hon. Member for Garscadden said about the importance of the best evidence being available to the courts—[Interruption.] Well, that was the implication behind his question.

Mr. John Home Robertson: That is hearsay.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Hon. Gentlemen can elaborate on their comments in due course.
I should perhaps stress that we are here dealing with questions of admissibility. The Bill does not in any way fetter the power of the courts to decide what weight should be placed on a particular item of evidence. That is an important point, and I am glad to take this opportunity to stress it. The Bill seeks to remove the technical barriers of corroboration, while at the same time retaining the judge's power to decide whether he is satisfied with any particular piece of evidence before him.
The Bill takes the opportunity in clause 1(2) to abolish specifically the concept of corroboration by false denial. That is a special rule applicable only in cases for the establishing of paternity. Under the rule, denial by a defender in the witness box of a material fact which is later proved to be true may be accepted as corroboration of the pursuer's evidence as to paternity. The rule has been described as
at best a doubtful doctrine".
The second main recommendation proposed by the commission is the abolition of the rule against hearsay. That is implemented in clause 2. I think that it would be of benefit to the House and might again serve to illustrate the need for reform if I dealt briefly with the existing law. Under the present law, hearsay evidence is generally not admitted. The rule is, broadly speaking, to the effect that statements made other than by a witness giving evidence in court are inadmissible. The rule applies to both oral and written statements.
However, the present law admits a number of exceptions to the general rule of hearsay. I have mentioned already the practical problems of the requirement for corroboration. Similar problems arise through the exclusion of hearsay evidence. In many cases, the point to which the evidence is directed is a minor or uncontroversial one which the other party is unlikely to dispute. I have already said that in practice such hearsay evidence is often admitted—that was the view of the commission.
However, as with corroboration, a party seeking to establish that fact cannot be certain of the evidence being admitted and thus may go to considerable trouble, expense and time to ensure that direct evidence is available to prove a fact that is not a major issue in the case. The expense and difficulty may be out of all proportion to the importance of the point and in such a case, the rule against hearsay may be said to operate to increase the cost of litigation unnecessarily. Abolition of that rule would therefore contribute to savings both in expense and in court time.
In considering whether the law relating to hearsay should be reformed, the Scottish Law Commission felt that the number of problems and inconsistencies pointed towards the need for relaxation.
For example, res gestae forms an exception to the general rule against hearsay. [HON. MEMBERS: "Define it."] Hon. Members have asked me to define it. Res gestae are statements which form an integral part of, or are closely connected with, the facts in issue and go to the essence of a case. Thus, a witness could give evidence that he heard an injured colleague at work shout, "Look out," just before an accident. Although strictly speaking hearsay, that evidence would be admitted under the res gestae rule. The difficulty is in deciding how closely connected with the event the statement has to be.
Problems also arise with what are termed extra-judicial admissions. For example, an admission by one party is admissible as evidence against himself or herself but not as evidence against a co-defender. That is an example of a court having the difficult task of having to admit a statement for one purpose, but to ignore it for another.
The Scottish Law Commission concluded, therefore, that the existing law, with its general prohibition and detailed exceptions, was unduly complicated. Hon. Members will say that a lot of our law is unduly complex. More importantly, however, the commission took the view that exclusion of hearsay evidence operated unreasonably to exclude potentially valuable evidence. I fully accept that view. There are numerous instances where hearsay evidence is quite simply the best evidence available. To exclude it because of technicalities serves only, in my view, to deny the courts the opportunity to hear all the relevant evidence.
I am supported in that view by reference to the comments of Lord Wilberforce in Waugh v. British Railways Board, a case heard in the Appeal Court in 1980. Speaking of a report made shortly after a railway accident, Lord Wilberforce said:
It is clear that the due administration of justice strongly requires disclosure and production of this report. It was contemporary. It contained statements of witnesses on the spot. It would be not merely relevant evidence but almost certainly the best evidence as to the cause of the accident.
The present exceptions to the rule against hearsay do not provide a satisfactory solution. They have, as the commission states, been developed ad hoc to meet particular difficulties.
We have, of course, examples already of the relaxation of the rule against hearsay. In practice, it is quite common for hearsay evidence to be admitted by the courts in matters which are not of overwhelming importance. In addition, I have already cited the relaxation of corroboration requirements in proceedings before tribunals and inquiries. Those proceedings also allow hearsay evidence without any apparent diminution of the standard of justice.
It is fair to say that the consultation carried out on behalf of my noble and learned Friend, the Lord Advocate revealed a number of substantial comments and criticisms against the proposal to abolish the rule against hearsay. For example, the sheriffs association opposed the recommendation largely on the grounds that hearsay is not the best evidence. It was suggested also that the law should be reformed by extension and clarification of the existing exceptions to the general rule against hearsay.

Mr. Kenneth Hind: My hon. Friend has no doubt had an opportunity to consider the Civil Evidence Act 1968 for England and Wales. It is interesting to note that the Scottish Law Commission drew a parallel between the Bill and the 1968 Act, and recommended that the party against whom hearsay evidence is to be used should put the other party on notice. Has my hon. Friend now totally discounted that as a possibility? Such an action would be taking one by surprise and would be almost ambush evidence. Has my hon. Friend decided not to pursue that?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: My hon. Friend has raised an important point to which I shall come in a moment. On consultation, the Association of Sheriffs Principal made it quite clear that it was not in favour of the notice procedure. The Association of Reporters of Children's Panels was against the notice procedure, as was the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Lord Elliot of the Lands Court and the Faculty of Advocates. However, I shall come to that in a moment, together with the reasons why the Government rejected that view.
The Association of Sheriffs Principal was concerned that reform of the law might make the situation more complex. I think it fair to say, however, that its comments were directed more at what it saw as procedural difficulties.
On the other hand, the Faculty of Advocates expressed broad agreement with the proposed abolition. A working party of Court of Session judges also conceded that some judges of the Court of Session held the view that the hearsay rule might, with advantage, be abolished. The Bill has got it right in its abolition in clause 2 of the rule against hearsay. While I fully appreciate the views of those who were opposed to, or at least wary of, such a reform, I do


not think that retention of a complex rule or its modification would meet the needs of a law of evidence whose rules must cope with the problem of ensuring that all relevant evidence is available to the court.

Mr. Michael Fallon: My hon. Friend has referred to evidence being relevant. Can he confirm that the admissibility of hearsay evidence is changed under clause 2 and that hearsay evidence admitted will be subject to the same, and no less strong, tests of relevance as any other evidence?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: It will be for the court to give appropriate and due weight to all the evidence before it. The more distant the evidence, the less weight it will carry, which stands to reason.

Mr. Hind: My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon) has raised an important point. If one of the parties has no notice of the evidence and is not able to test it, it will be difficult to cross-examine on that evidence. The judge must consider that it is of less probative value than first-hand evidence that he hears.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The Government came down against that view because they felt that it would lead to the reintroduction of hearsay by another route, would be complicated and would make the reform not worth following through.
As hon. Members have pointed out, the Bill departs from the commission's recommendations about a notice procedure for the admission of hearsay evidence. The commission proposed that a party wishing to rely on hearsay evidence would have to convince the court that it was neither reasonable nor practicable to bring along the maker of the hearsay statement to give evidence. If the court came to the view that the maker of the statement could have been brought to court, it could refuse to admit the hearsay evidence.
As an adjunct to that proposal, the commission's Bill contained a notice procedure, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) has referred. That would have enabled a party to notify his opponent that he intended to rely on hearsay evidence. Unless his opponent served a counter-notice objecting to the hearsay evidence, he would lose his right to object at the proof itself.
A number of those who responded to the consultation on behalf of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate were of the view that, while reform was necessary, the commission's proposal to allow the courts to retain a power to refuse to admit hearsay evidence, together with an associated notice procedure, could have the effect simply of reintroducing the rule against hearsay.
The Government were persuaded by this argument, and the Bill simply abolishes the rule against hearsay by providing in clause 2(1)(a) that evidence cannot be excluded solely on the grounds that it is hearsay. I should emphasise to the House that that leaves untouched any other means whereby evidence might be considered inadmissible. For instance, the court might hold that evidence was irrelevant and could be excluded on that ground, whether or not it was hearsay.
As with corroboration, the court retains its power to attach due weight to the hearsay evidence. Therefore, the Bill seeks to ensure that potentially valuable evidence is not lost to the court, resulting in injustice to any of the

parties. The court, however, is still able, and indeed obliged, to consider and evaluate the evidence put before it.
Those hon. Members who followed the debate on the Bill in the other place will have noticed the references ma de by my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate to the position of civil juries in questions of hearsay evidence. The Lord President of the Court of Session said that civil juries in the Court of Session might have some difficulties in evaluating hearsay evidence. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are being extremely provocative. I have absorbed every word of the report, which makes it clear that these difficulties might arise.
While my noble and learned Friend appreciated the problem, the small number of civil jury trials in the court—there were only four in 1985, as hon. Members know—did not merit the rejection of what is seen as a valuable and important reform. Rather, my noble and learned Friend took the view that consideration might be given to abolishing civil jury trials in the Court of Session. That has already been done for the sheriff courts by the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1980. My noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate has riot of course arrived at any conclusions yet, but he intends to consult interested parties on this important subject.
I should draw to the notice of the House the provisions of clause 2(3) and (4) which were inserted by the Government during consideration of the Bill in the other place. At first sight, these subsections seem merely technical, but they are important additions to the Bill. They refine the existing powers of the Court of Session to make procedural rules for actions in the Court of Session and the sheriff court for the admission of statements, including affidavits and reports instead of oral evidence.

Mr. Frank Doran: Is the Minister aware that the Second Reading debate in the other place, which involved three of the most prominent Scottish Ministers, took only 34 minutes? He has already managed to exceed that, and he has not yet reached clause 3.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Our Committee proceedings may be brief, and it is only fair that hon. Members should have a clear picture of an extremely important Scottish legal measure. It is appropriate that matters of supreme importance to the legal system of Scotland, which is one of the finest in the western world, should be debated fully on the Floor of the House.
The existing rules of court provide for the admissibility of statements in certain circumstances. For example, rule of court 152 provides:
In any Admiralty or commercial cause the Court m ay accept as evidence affidavits. Where in the opinion of the Court any affidavit produced is insufficient to enable the question at issue to be disposed of, the party lodging the same may be called on to lodge a supplementary affidavit, or, where the circumstances reasonably permit, to provide the relevant facts by the ordinary rules of evidence.
In rule of court 168, which deals with undefended actions of divorce and separation and aliment, subsection (4) provides:
Proof in all actions shall, unless in any particular action the Court otherwise directs, be by way of evidence submitted in the form of affidavits and such evidence shall not be treated as being insufficient for the purpose of proof by reason only that it is not supported by parole evidence".
To that extent, the rules are overtaken by clause 2(1)(b), which provides for the general admissibility of statements. Subsections (3) and (4) therefore amend the existing


rule-making powers to remove the power to provide for the admissibility of statemens. Such a power is unnecessary and could also be said to be in conflict with the provisions of the Bill.
However, as well as providing for the admissibility of statements, the powers and rules also serve the secondary purpose of providing that those statements may be capable of being received in evidence without requiring further proof as to authenticity. It appears to be generally accepted in practice that that is the position, but it is not entirely clear whether all statements admitted in this way will be capable of being received without further authentication—in short, to be self-proving. There is some doubt whether the existing powers would be sufficiently wide to enable rules to specify that a document is self-proving in isolation from specifying its admissibility.
Therefore, these subsections restate the rule-making powers in a form designed to deal with the self-proving aspect. In this way, the Bill establishes the proper distinction between statements which are simply admissible under clause 2(1)(b) and those statements to which the court has decided to accord special status as being not only admissible under clause 2 but self-proving in the circumstances prescribed by rules of court.
I have dealt with the main proposals implemented by the Bill and I shall now deal with the third main aspect of the Bill, which is the type of proceedings in which the new evidential rules are to apply. That is governed by clause 9, but I think that it will be for the convenience of the House if I deal with it now.
I have mentioned that the Bill applies only to civil proceedings. It does not deal with the question whether certain types of proceedings can be classed as civil proceedings. For example, proceedings in respect of breach of interdict may be regarded as civil, criminal or quasi-criminal. This classification will continue to be a question for determination by the courts in each particular case.
Clause 9 defines the types of proceedings to which the Bill applies. These include, of course, proceedings in the ordinary civil courts. The Bill also makes it clear that hearings before the sheriff under section 42 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 are to be regarded as civil proceedings. That relates to the conduct of children's hearings and applications to the sheriff for findings.
Following the most useful discussions in the other place on the Bill's application to civil proceedings the Lord Advocate introduced amendments so that the Bill applies to proceedings before arbitrations, tribunals and inquiries, and to proceedings that are conducted in accordance with rules of procedure agreed between the parties themselves.
Hon. Members will appreciate that a feature of proceedings before tribunals, arbitrations and inquiries is that they are almost invariably regulated by rules that are contained either in statutory form or in an agreement between the parties. Those rules usually make some provision for the rules of evidence that are to apply. It is right that the Bill should make available to such proceedings the benefit of the more relaxed evidential regime that will be in use in the ordinary courts. It is also right that the ability to make special rules for those proceedings should remain.
For that reason, in the Bill's application to arbitrations, tribunals, inquiries and proceedings conducted in accordance with a procedure agreed between parties, an exeption is made for instances in which specific provision has been made for the evidential rules that are to apply. I think that that answers the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East. The Bill thus enables opting out of the new rules and accommodates alternative evidential regimes set down by, for example, tribunal rules or agreement between the parties where that is competent.
I have covered the main framework of the Bill and the background to the considerations applied to it. Much of the remainder of the Bill in clauses 3 to 8 deals with matters related to the main proposals on corroboration and hearsay.
Clause 3 deals with prior statements. Under the present law, the credibility of a witness can be attacked by reference to prior inconsistent statements made by him or her on another occasion. Curiously enough, however, the witness's credibility cannot be supported by reference to prior statements that are consistent with his evidence in the witness box. The Bill corrects that anomaly by allowing prior statements to be admissible for both attacking and supporting credibility. However, there is an exception to that broad rule. By virtue of the definition of "statement" in clause 9, a precognition cannot be used to support or attack credibility. A precognition is simply an account prepared by another person, such as a solicitor, of the evidence likely to be available from a witness. Thus, a statement in a precognition is different in nature from a statement made by the witness himself.
Clause 4 ensures that the fact that a person has been present in court during the proceedings does not prevent him from being called as a witness or recalled to give evidence to clarify hearsay evidence admitted under clause 2.
Clause 5 builds on the present law, which allows certain relaxations of the evidential rules on proof of documents. Normally a document requires to be spoken to by a witness before the document and any statement contained in it can be admitted as evidence. That rule is relaxed under both common law and statute in respect of certain business books and records—for example, bankers' books under the Bankers' Books Evidence Act 1879.
As for other types of documents, I am sure that hon. Members who have been involved in court proceedings will be aware of the difficulties sometimes encountered when witnesses have to be brought to court simply to speak to the fact that they were involved in the preparation of documents that are productions in a case. That can at times lead to unnecessary delay and expense. Clause 5 will minimise the difficulty by enabling an appropriately certified document of any business or undertaking and any statement in that document to be proved in court without the need for a witness to speak to it.
Clause 6 provides further assistance for a party wishing to rely on documentary evidence. Under present evidential requirements, and subject to certain relaxations, original documents rather than copies must be produced unless the parties can agree otherwise. That can lead to difficulties in lengthy cases involving original documents that may be required for other purposes. The clause enables a properly authenticated copy document to be admitted and treated for evidential purposes as if it were the original.
The problem addressed by clause 7 has not yet arisen in Scotland, but it is right that the opportunity presented by the Bill should be taken to provide a solution. In civil proceedings, it may on occasion be necessary to prove that a particular record simply does not exist. Clause 7 therefore admits the evidence of an officer of a business or undertaking as to the absence of a record without the need to produce all the existing records, as would be required at present.
Clause 8 clarifies and restates the law on actions on family relationships, such as actions for divorce or parentage. In broad terms, the Bill retains the fundamental requirement that in such cases it is necessary for the pursuer to establish the grounds of action before he or she can be successful. That rule applies whether or not the action is defended. In addition, the evidence to establish the grounds of action must come, at least partly, from a source other than a party to the marriage.
In the context of family relationships, I am sure that hon. Members will agree that, as far as possible, the legislative rules should be capable of reflecting the social and legal requirements of the day. For that reason, the clause gives the Lord Advocate power to disapply the requirement that evidence should come from another source. But I should make it clear to hon. Members that Parliament will have an opportunity to discuss any changes of this nature, since the order is required to be made by affirmative resolution.
The remaining clauses are formal, but I have already mentioned the important definition of civil proceedings in clause 9. I should also draw hon. Members' attention to clause 10(2), which provides that changes in the evidential rules will not apply to proceedings in which proof has commenced before the date of operation of the Act—if the Bill is enacted. That avoids the undesirable situation of parties being subjected to a change in the rules of evidence part way through a proof.
I have dealt in some depth with the provisions of the Bill and the background to it. I did so because the Bill had a commendably rapid passage through the other place. In case the Bill has a similarly brief passage through this house, it is desirable that hon. Members should know in detail what is proposed.
This is an important and, some might say, a radical measure of law reform. Although the Bill contains substantial changes in the rules of evidence in civil proceedings, the Government do not envisage a marked change in the way in which cases will be presented. It is true that, if the Bill is enacted, parties will be able to rely on uncorroborated evidence and hearsay evidence. However, parties will, I am sure, continue to seek to put before the court the best evidence available to them. I expect, therefore, that they will continue to lead corroborative evidence where it is available and bring the makers of statements before the courts whenever possible.
In instances where that is not possible, the Bill will ensure that courts will still have before them as much relevant evidence as possible. As a result, neither party will be penalised simply because potentially valuable evidence is excluded on technical grounds. A party will thus be able to proceed with an otherwise good case which under the present evidential regime would be doomed to fail because of an inability to meet technical requirements of corroboration or to produce evidence that was hearsay.
I am glad that the Bill received a generous welcome in all parts of the other place, and I hope that it will find a

similar welcome here. It is a thoroughly valuable law reform measure. I look forward to the speech by the hon. Member for Garscadden.

Mr. Donald Dewar: The Scottish Conservative party conference has had a narrow escape. Obviously, the Minister was anxious to get something off his chest. I understand that he was inaugurating Falkirk sheriff court today. I do not know whether that meant that he was filling up the first legal aid application or locking the first cell door. I am certainly in favour of a total moratorium on public expenditure in that area if it has the effect upon the hon. Gentleman that we have just seen.
The Minister gave an extraordinary performance I recognise, of course, that this is a significant law reform measure, but I wonder whether it is a good use of Civil Service resources to type out, for the Minister to read, the entire report by the Scottish Law Commission and to interpolate into it a few broken fragments from the Lord Advocate's speeches in the House of Lords. That does not reflect a great deal of credit upon the Minister.
I should start by declaring an interest. I am still a partner in a Glasgow law firm and to that extent I have an interest in the law of evidence in Scotland and, perhaps in a more direct sense, in legal aid and litigation in Scotland. However, it is a very remote interest.
We support the Bill. It is well on its way through the legislative process, and has encountered surprisingly little controversy. It has gone through the House of Lords, where there were some brief exchanges, Lord Morton of Shuna exchanging some elegant courtesies with the Lord Advocate in very short order. Members of the other House have habits which could be learnt with some advantage by the Government.
There has been little sign of professional concern. I have not been involved in, or the object of, any lobbying, arid there has been no real stir or controversy over the measure. Although the Minister talked about wide consultation, according to the appendix to the Law Commission report there have been only 17 submitted written comments on the consultative memorandum No. 46. I find that a little surprising. It does something fairly fundamental in removing the need for corroboration and admitting hearsay evidence, even if that is confined to the civil code and does not spill over into the criminal law.
I have a long memory. The Minister has referred to the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968. I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) in his place, as he was the Minister who took that Bill through the Commons. He and I are among the few who can say that "we woz there", although the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) also played a part in the proceedings by voting against the removal of corroboration from actions for personal injury. As I said in a brief intervention, that is one of the slightly strange factors. Section 9 of that Act did exactly what this Bill is doing, but in a much more limited sense, because it related to only one or two specific types of categories of case, of which actions for personal injury were by far the most important.
We heard an extremely spirited attack from the Conservative Benches in 1968. Norman Wylie—a popular


and respected Member at the time, now Lord Wylie and on the Court of Session Bench—led from the Front Bench.
He said:
These are provisions to which as a Scottish lawyer I take the strongest possible exception.
To be fair to him, he followed it through, and the Conservatives voted against clause stand part at the Committee stage. A certain Mr. Hector Monro was among those opposed to the reform. Who knows? We may even hear a small personal statement about why he has changed his mind. I presume that he is not leading a similar attack on the Government's policy this evening.
Norman Wylie went on to make it clear that in his view the whole proposition was unsound. The principle of corroboration, he said,
provided a safeguard against the acceptance of untrue and unreliable testimony. This Bill proposes to abolish that requirement in a large tract of civil litigation…In my career of fifteen or sixteen years at the Bar I can only think of one case in which I had to advise that there was insufficient evidence to enable an action to be raised, and having regard to the later decisions of Cleisham v. the British Transport Commission I would certainly not have given that advice today."—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 19 March 1968; c. 24–5.]
On that basis he consigned, or tried to consign, the whole reform to the dustbin. It was not just a personal quirk; Wylie took the Conservative party with him. Perhaps I should say that I am pleased that Conservative Members have thought again about the matter in the considerable interval that has elapsed.
I notice from reading the reports that I supported the relaxation of the rule then, and I do so again tonight. It was quite an interesting debate. I was followed—this is a real piece of memorabilia—by Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth. In those days, there was a different kind of hon. Gentleman on the Conservative Benches. In any event, I want to make it clear that we support the proposal on corroboration.
I have some reservations; in a strange way, I have more than I had in 1968. Then, a narrow exception was being introduced to right what was seen as a specific wrong. The House was unashamedly being a pursuer's man. We were saying that there were people who clearly deserved redress, and we strongly suspected that the court felt that they should receive it, but because of the technicalities of the need to find corroboration—even with all the ingenuity and the relaxation of the law—in some cases it was not possible to give that redress. It was very much in that spirit that we were moving to legislate. Now, of course, we are unashamedly removing altogether the rule about corroboration in civil cases. In a sense, that is a much more serious move, and although I give it my support, I think that it is worth stopping momentarily to consider the arguments.
The bare facts are stated, and the Minister quoted from the Scottish Law Commission report. However, let me quote briefly from paragraph 2.1:
The requirement of corroboration has been regarded as a safeguard against the acceptance of unreliable evidence. Our consideration of current law and practice in civil proceedings, however, has now led us to the opinion that a formal requirement of corroboration in such proceedings is not in the overall interests of justice.
If that position is to be accepted, that is the end of the matter. I suppose that there is now a consensus which I have joined, but I think that the House should recognise that a considerable change is involved.
The argument on hearsay is similar. Perhaps I can do a bit of special pleading. I was never very comfortable with the rather artificial rules and definitions that surround the matter, and the niceties of simple and multiple hearsay as discussed in the report that we have, in effect, before us in legislative form.
I agree that there are arguments for retention. I am not particularly impressed with the jury's difficulty in evaluating hearsay evidence. The Minister mentioned that the Lord Advocate is considering the fate of civil juries. I should have thought that it was not a major issue, although I may be wrong. I see that the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) dissents, but I have considerable sympathy with the survival of a form of procedure that has almost fallen into desuetude. No doubt we can consider that on a future occasion.
I should be interested to hear something about the timetable. Perhaps the Minister will say a word about it when he sums up. He said, in his usual way, that there would be further consultation and that all interested parties would have a chance to have their say. But it is now six months since Lord Cameron of Lochbroom spoke on Second Reading in the House of Lords. I should have thought that, even if he had not reached a decison, he would have some idea of when one would be reached.
The main problem is that hearsay evidence admitted under the new relaxation would not be subject to cross-examination. That again was very fairly rehearsed in paragraph 3.21 of the report. The Commission made it clear that there were problems, as I think it was bound to do:
in our view under our system of adversary procedure it can often be an essential tool for extracting the truth.
There has been some discussion of the departure from the draft Bill prepared by the Scottish Law Commission, under which notice had to be given if hearsay evidence was to be led. There were certain rights for the other side in the case. The Government have decided against that, probably rightly, although certainly the Lord Advocate did not try to argue the case; he merely stated flatly that it had been decided that it would not be right to go down that road. I noted that the Minister repeated that in exactly the same terms a few minutes ago. I hope that I will not depress him when I say that I do not see any possibility of a cursory Committee stage. He will probably be reassured, as he seemed worried about it. I look forward to a fairly full Committee hearing, and perhaps we can look at the matter with some care then.
A theme of some significance runs through the measures. They look at civil litigation in terms of common sense and the courts looking at the facts, trying to get at the truth and perhaps not standing too nicely upon the intricacies of procedure and the rules of court. The point was well made by our colleague who is now in another place, Lord Ross of Marnock, who said on 19 March 1968:
If I may interpolate my own view, it is that, where there is a dispute about facts in a civil matter and the matter is brought before a court of law for an adjudication on the facts, justice can best be served and seen to be served if the court, however difficult this may be in certain cases, is allowed to determine what is the most probable reading of what occurred in the light of all the evidence and circumstances. A requirement of law such as the requirement of corroboration must be artificial and tend to come between the court and the most probable reading. Accordingly I am firmly in favour of the Commission's recommendation".— [Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 19 March 1968; c.10–11.]


That recommendation was ultimately section 9 of the 1968 Act.
One can take that argument too far, because if one applied it in the criminal area there would be considerable difficulties, but as a statement of general approach in the civil area it seems to underline what we are looking at now, and I should he prepared to support it.
We are relaxing the laws of evidence, but it seems that many of the court procedures are still narrow, formal and based on textual criticisms of pleadings, which the ordinary client often fails to understand. I remember being a young solicitor, even in the sheriff court, translating and transferring things from adjustment to procedural rolls, and not knowing what I was doing or why, but clutching a bit of paper for the occasion. I was conscious that it was causing a great deal of delay and no doubt frustration to my clients. We should consider that in the longer term to see whether there is a way of simplifying those procedures as well.
I was interested to note that paragraph 2.9 in the section on corroboration in the Scottish Law Commission's report stated:
A further criticism of the present law which has been made to us by some commentators and which we think of considerable practical importance is that the requirement can lead to unnecessary expense, delays and inconvenience.
I am not sure that the Law Society agrees with that, but I think that there is some force in it. If we are to take that seriously, we should look at some of our court procedures as well and we might get nearer to what was in the mind of Lord Ross of Marnock in 1968 when he suggested that a more common-sense approach was right.
According to the explanatory and financial memoran-dum, clause I will have no impact on public funds. I believe that there will probably be a small impact. If the reform means anything, presumably some cases will go to court which otherwise would not have done so, and some will proceed which otherwise might have been laid to rest. I should be interested if the Minister referred to the workings of the civil legal aid system now that the Scottish Legal Aid Board is in operation. I have looked at the latest accounts of the Scottish legal aid fund for the year to 31 March 1987, when it was under the control of the Law Society. The accounts are signed by Jock Smith and Ken Pritchard on behalf of the Law Society. The cost of solicitors' and counsels' fees and outlays in civil legal aid in 1986–87 was £14·5 million. I do not know whether there is any idea what the figure will be for 1987–88 or for the coming year—it is too early for that. I should be interested to know what trends are beginning to emerge now that the new scheme is in being.
I know that the Minister has been thinking about this and that there may be an opportunity to debate it later in the House, but I ask him to give an idea of the Government's thinking on the contentious issue of when legal aid comes into effect. As some people in the House will know, the old system was that one lodged the application and if the solicitor was reasonably confident that legal aid would be granted, he would continue to process the work. In due course the legal aid grant came through and the solicitor could charge properly for the work back to the date of lodgment. If the solicitor miscalculated, he would end up with unpaid work, but that was a gamble that most solicitors were prepared to take and it was in everyone's interest.
This is a point of real substance. Now, one applies for legal aid to the Scottish Legal Aid Board and is paid for the work that is done from the time when the intimation of grant is received. That may take three, six or perhaps more months and even when legal aid is granted, it is often six weeks before intimation is made. As a result, no solicitor of any prudence will do a hand's turn in the interests of his client until he has the intimation in his hand.
Effectively, the civil action will lie dormant perhaps for three to nine months, depending on the circumstances, with nothing happening at all, much to the frustration of those involved, because of the way in which the new system operates. I do not understand the rationale of that, because ultimately the work will have to be done and will be paid for by the legal aid fund. Under the old system it was done promptly, which was an advantage and in the public interest.
I hope that the Minister will reconsider, and reinstate the old system now. There is no doubt that delay brings the law into disrepute and it seems that he is now determined to build delay into the system. The matter arises, at least tangentially, under the Bill. Perhaps we shall be able to discuss it in Committee, but I invite the Minister to tell us his thinking, which must be in an advanced state by now.
I should like to conclude my speech because I do not want to rival the Minister in any way—thinking about it, I say that absolutely, but I say it particularly in regard to length of speech. I believe that we can have a useful, although not necessarily protracted Committee stage. There will be many points that are worth examining in Committee, one or two of which I have mentioned.
I am particularly interested in the reference to proofs before the sheriff under section 42 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Doran) has had a great deal of experience in that. The distinction that is made between grounds of referral under section 32 of the Act—the majority of them—and section 32(2)(g), which depends upon an offence, is logical. However, it raises some interesting queries. I can envisage difficulties when there is a case under one of the grounds of referral which involves, for example, child abuse or sexual abuse, and where the relaxation of the laws of corroboration and hearsay will apply. Therefore, a finding might be made on the balance of probability rather than on proof beyond reasonable doubt, and the consequences could be fairly serious.
The very fact that we are relaxing hearsay opens up the argument, which I shall not rehearse now but which we might want to look at in Committee, on how one deals with the evidence of very young children and proofs within the children's hearing system. As the Minister knows, there has been a lengthy debate about video links, recorded statements and the circumstances in which they can be used. There has been interesting experimentation in the Glasgow sheriff courts and probably in other parts of Scotland. The provision, about section 42 of the 1968 Act, allows us to obtain a report of the Government's thinking, and I hope that we shall be able to do so in Committee.
It is good that it is now easier to prove that a record does not exist, or it will be once the measure is on the statute book. No one mourns the passing of corroboration by false denial. I promised the Minister that we shall not look too closely at the Bankers' Books Evidence Act 1879, which is mentioned fairly freely in the Bill. I am even prepared to accept that section 1 of the Evidence (Foreign,


Dominion and Colonial Documents) Act 1933 is not affected, and to live with that disappointment. There are much more important matters than that.
I certainly welcome the Bill as it stands. It is the result of work by the Scottish Law Commission. The Minister paid his tribute and I am glad to echo it. I hope that I do not get into trouble for murmuring a judge, but the speech of Norman Wylie back in 1968 had a very funny passage, in which he invited us to look with great scepticism at the report of the Scottish Law Commission on the basis that there was no member of the Faculty of Advocates among its members. I am glad to say that that has been put right—not that that seems to be a particularly sound approach to legal judgment, but it was a long time ago.
I congratulate the Law Commission, particularly its chairman, Lord Maxwell, who will be retiring shortly. I do not know who his successor will be, but whoever it is I hope that he will carry on the good work in the years ahead. I see several other hon. Members wishing to rise so I conclude with a total irrelevancy—which I shall try to get in quickly before you interrupt me, Mr. Deputy Speaker—which is that, on a cut of the cards in Cumbernauld tonight, Labour took power.

Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith: I shall leave the last remark of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), which will be welcomed on the Opposition Benches, although it may not be to one hon. Member there. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the modesty of his speech, at least in relation to its length, but modesty is purely a relative quality for this debate. I am delighted to see support on these Benches from hon. Friends with legal knowledge from south of the Border. No doubt they will contribute to our debate and enliven the Committee proceedings, ensuring that we have some good speeches.
As a complete layman on legal matters, I am going where I fear to tread, but at least I am prepared to try a little. I hope that that will be commended in the appropriate quarters and that there are rewards for trying as well as for other things. Obviously, I bow to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who has experience of Law Commission reports and who has even been so brave as to take them to the length of private Member's Bills.
I have respect for the work of the Scottish Law Commission. What it advocates in its reports and what we seek to embody in legislation is well considered. But, like the hon. Member for Garscadden, I believe that it is important that we laymen should not take what it says for granted. Its views should be tested. The legislation removes the need for corroboration in civil cases, so by implication it facilitates the procedures of the pursuer.
But we must also ask: what of the defendant? I hope that the House is a defender of those who may be affected badly by the legislation and I trust that a proper balance is struck and the defendant is not put in a weaker position as a result. I support a move towards simplification, but we have a right and duty to ensure that that is not at the expense of justice. That is fundamental, and I hope that my hon. Friend will address that point.
As the hon. Member for Garscadden said, trenchant comments were made when these matters were

considered earlier in relation to personal industrial injury cases. If my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) were present, we might indeed have had some trenchant comments and it might have made for a livelier, better informed evening. As a poor substitute for him, I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to put any doubts at rest about the rights of defendants.
The Bill puts a particular onus on the judge or sheriff to maintain justice. He must ensure that any claims are properly substantiated. It is important to ensure that proceedings are not based on scraps of uncorroborated evidence or hearsay.
Does my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State anticipate that the legislation will give rise to many claims? The courts are already overburdened and I am sure that when he was in Falkirk today, despite the new facilities there, those responsible for the workings of the courts would have used the opportunity to tell him how overburdened the courts are. While our main objective must be to see that justice is done, equally we do not want the courts to be cluttered with spurious claims that have little chance of success.
It would help us to reach a decision—certainly it would guide me how to vote—if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State could tell us whether the 1968 legislation has been successful in terms of damages for personal injuries. Has it increased the claims, has it given a proper opportunity to genuine claims or has it been merely a stimulant of spurious claims? What are the views of the Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates? Apparently the position of the Faculty of Advocates is rectified in relation to the Law Commission, but it would be helpful for laymen like me to know what the learned view is of those whose job it is to administer the law.
The hon. Member for Garscadden raised the subject of legal aid. If the legislation is to simplify legal procedures, I would expect it to give better access to the law for those whose rights need to be upheld. I am slightly surprised that there are no implications for costs and public expenditure as a result of the Bill. Surely we are trying to facilitate procedures through the courts, so that is likely to lead to more cases and applications having to be assessed. How many new cases does my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State expect to arise as a result of the legislation, and will that increase the need for legal aid?
To follow the example set so far in this debate, I shall refer to some specific points on which I seek clarification. Clauses 5 and 6 deal with documents. Since these clauses apparently automatically allow true copies or proofs of statement, what procedures are there to ensure that the original can be challenged, thus ensuring that the copies are properly substantiated and followed through?
Clause 9 is the definitions clause. It states that "hearsay" includes hearsay of whatever degree. What are those degrees of hearsay? It would be helpful to a layman like me to have some explanation of that.
The hon. Member for Garscadden passed quickly over clause 10(3), but I should like to know why we have an Evidence (Colonial Statutes) Act 1907, an Evidence (Foreign, Dominion and Colonial Documents) Act 1933 and an Oaths and Evidence (Overseas Authorities and Countries) Act 1963. These are important matters about which the House should know. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies to the debate—even if his


speech is short in relation to the one that he made earlier—he will find time to deal with clause 10(3). That will also guide me in how I vote at the end of the debate.
There is great strength on the Government Front Bench tonight, with a former Deputy Chief Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Sir J. Stradling Thomas), having been wheeled in to ensure that the legislation goes through properly. There is obviously great anxiety about the Bill.
Corroboration has been removed from personal injury law and civil evidence law. That leaves only the law of criminal evidence. My hon. Friend the Minister made it clear that the Government do not intend to introduce a similar measure for that area, but there has been a gradual progression from 1968 to 1988, and simple people like me may wonder whether in 2008 there will be a move to apply similar measures to criminal proceedings. It would do a service to the House, and it would give us some insight into my hon. Friend's mind, if he would say how he views an extension in 2008 of the principle that started in 1968.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: I, too, declare an interest as a member of the Faculty of Advocates. I share the sense of regret expressed by the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) at the absence from this Scottish occasion of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). I have it by way of uncorroborated hearsay that had he been present he would not have allowed the Minister quite the favourable hearing that he enjoyed from the House.
The debate turns on corroboration and hearsay. It is interesting that the Bill and the Minister defend a set of circumstances in relation to tribunals which the Bill, if properly directed, should have tried to change. Although corroboration and hearsay will be swept away in a civil action—I shall return to the absence of definition of that in due course—if legislation which provides for arrangements in tribunals contradicts the proposal to abolish corroboration and hearsay, that existing legislation will continue to prevail.
In an intervention I mentioned to the Minister a case that has recently come to my attention in which someone trying to prosecute a complaint of poor dental treatment has discovered that the inquiry set up by the local health board requires corroboration to establish the validity of the complaint.

Mr. Home Robertson: The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth?

Mr. Campbell: If it is possible in a civil action to sue for £10 million and to be successful on uncorroborated evidence, it is curious that a similar relaxation of the rules of evidence is not available in cases where someone tries to establish poor or improper treatment.
The starting point for the relaxation of corroboration was section 9 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968. But following its enactment, the decisions of the Court of Session have been by no means consistent. I cite for the information of the House, but not for that of the Minister, who will be more than familiar with them, the cases of Maclaren v. Caldwells Paper Mill Company and Morrison v. Kelly. Although the Court of Session did not blunt the effect of the legislation

in those cases, it interpreted the law in such a way that it did not fulfil the considerable expectations that many people in the House had for it.
For example, it appears to be accepted that the existence of the exception—currently the law under section 9—is no excuse if corroborative evidence is available and has not been led. What evidence do the Government have that section 9 has fulfilled the function for which it was passed into law? What evidence do they have that that section has alleviated many of the hardships that were in the minds of those who promoted that provision vigorously?
Although I cannot speak on behalf of the Faculty of Advocates and give the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside the informed collective view that he sought, as someone who has practised in the Court of Session for the 20 years since section 9 became law, I can say that it has had little effect on the conduct of cases and, perhaps more significantly, has had little or no effect on the settlement of cases. That may be due more to the interpretation placed on section 9 by the court than to the terms of the legislation. My researches have revealed that no case that has come from Scotland to the Judicial Committee in another place would remove some of the apparent inconsistencies that those two decisions have thrown up.
If corroboration is no longer required, the evaluation and assessment of the evidence of a single witness will require special care and attention. That is no more than one would expect when a judge is sitting alone. But when a judge sits with a jury in civil cases, which is still common in the Court of Session and which is still a pursuer's right, unless special cause can be shown to the contrary, the requirement for careful and analytical direction of the jury will be paramount.
I was taken aback by the Minister's somewhat light-hearted suggestion that the civil jury trial in Scotland may not last much longer. In my professional experience, as someone who has appeared on behalf of pursuers and of defendants, in some cases juries are especially appropriate in determining the issues that are in dispute. I am thinking particularly of what, south of the Tweed, is called the running-down case, but which in Scotland is more frequently referred to as the case arising out of a road traffic accident.
I hope that the Government will not embark lightly on proposals to remove civil jury trials from the procedure available to the Court of Session. The mere fact that the opportunity to have a civil jury trial is infrequently invoked does not mean that it should necessarily be removed from a litigant's advisers if, in their judgment, that is the best way for the case to proceed.
A number of difficult matters arise with regard to corroboration. I should be grateful if the Minister could deal with one matter. I have observed that much is being heaped on his head for the closing speech. No doubt, if there are matters with which he cannot deal, he will, with his usual courtesy, write to those whom he has been unable to satisfy. What concerns me is that, if in an action of reduction of a document, such as a will or a disposition of heritable property, the evidence of a single witness will be sufficient, if believed, to bring that action to a successful conclusion, how does the Minister square that with the fact that the execution of a document—the coming into effect of the document—by law in Scotland requires that the signature of the person executing it be witnessed by two witnesses? One would have the paradoxical


circumstance in which it would take two people to vouch that I have signed a disposition of heritable property, but only I myself, if believed—I hope that that would be the case—would be sufficient to cause that document to be regarded as no longer being of any legal effect.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I follow the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, but we are dealing with two different circumstances. When a will is being made, the parties and witnesses can be present. When proving it on a later occasion, perhaps only one person may be present, or perhaps none, except for hearsay evidence of some sort. It may not be possible to have the same requirement at the later stage of the execution of a will.

Mr. Campbell: I hesitate to embark on a detailed discussion with the hon. Gentleman about the requirements of the execution of wills and dispositions, but it is worthy of note that the requirement for two witnesses is to establish the bona fide of the signature of the person executing the document. That is corroboration because two witnesses, not one, are required. It is noticeable that, when documents are issued by English finance houses or their equivalent, only one witness is sought. In Scotland, the rule remains that two witnesses are required. That is a question to which the Minister might address his mind, and in so doing he may be able to satisfy not only me but the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan).
I wish to take more serious issue with the Minister about the absence of a definition of civil proceedings in the Bill. He said that interdict was a civil or, perhaps more correctly, a quasi-criminal process. It is more correctly defined as being a civil process that may have quasi-criminal consequences. An action for interdict, which is the Scottish equivalent of an injunction, is commenced in a civil court. The point at which the consequences become quasi-criminal is if a person is guilty of a breach of an order of the court, which is treated as contempt of court and can be visited with punishments such as a fine or, if thought appropriate, imprisonment.
The difficulty that the Bill necessarily creates for practitioners is that, if there is no definition of "any civil proceedings", and if the Minister accepts that interdict may be civil or criminal on his own analysis, a practitioner who is asked to raise an initial writ in the sheriff court, or a summons in the Court of Session, will not be aware of what volume of evidence he is required to have before embarking on proceedings. If corroboration is required, it would be improper for a solicitor to raise an initial writ in the sheriff court or for an advocate to draft a summons for the Court of Session without corroborated evidence—evidence from two sources.
I suspect that the absence of a definition may give rise to considerable difficulty in circumstances in which urgency is often a paramount consideration. I hope, therefore, that the Government will give further consideration to whether it would not be appropriate, for the purposes of the Bill, to give a definition of what they regard as "any civil proceedings."
Like the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), I welcome unequivocally the ending of the rule that evidence might be corroborated by false denial. That rule applied only in actions of affiliation and aliment, in

which, to echo the archaic language used in these matters sometimes, there was a peniuria testium—a shortage of evidence arising out of the circumstances in which affiliation and the concomitant aliment might become necessary. It was a curious anomaly that something could be established because someone was found to be telling lies about it. The relaxation of the rule of corroboration, which the Bill necessarily embraces, removes something from our law that sat very uneasily in it.
I am much less sanguine about the value of allowing hearsay evidence to be admissible than about the relaxation of the rule of corroboration. I can do no better than quote from the late Lord Normand in the case Teper v. King, where he said:
The rule against the admission of hearsay evidence is fundamental. It is not the best evidence and it is not delivered on oath. The truthfulness and accuracy of the person whose words are spoken to by another witness cannot be tested by cross-examination, and the light which his demeanour would throw on his testimony would be lost.
One is entitled to ask what experience the Government have and what representations have been made to them that the proposition to which I have referred from the observations of Lord Normand is one that should necessarily be departed from and is justified by the terms of the Bill.
As to clause 3, I welcome the fact that statements made previously may be available to support or attack credibility. Up until now, by virtue of the terms of section 3 of the Evidence (Scotland) Act 1852, such statements were available only as a means of attacking credibility, not supporting it. I wonder whether the Minister will say something about the fact that a precognition is excluded, by clause 9, as being a means by which credibility might be supported or attacked. Is the Minister satisfied that the exclusion of a precognition is justified for that purpose?
I am surprised by clause 8(3), which talks about evidence consisting of the evidence of a person other than the person seeking the remedy. If I read that correctly, it means that a person might be in a position to obtain one of the remedies referred to in clause 8(2) without giving evidence himself. That seems a rather curious feature of the language of that part of the Bill. I should have thought that there was a strong argument, having regard to the remedies and types of action referred to in clause 8(2), that there should be evidence from a source other than the person seeking the remedy. I find it difficult to understand how the alternative evidence might be treated as the only evidence available in the case.
The Minister has said that there is no intention, especially with regard to hearsay and corroboration, that these principles should be extended from the civil law to the criminal law. Even from this short debate he must by now appreciate that the Government will find no welcome for any attempt to do that. I am by no means entirely cynical, but one can imagine reverberations at some future Conservative party conference when the law and order lobby is in full cry and the Lord Advocate has his not inconsiderable back to the wall. It is not difficult to imagine it being suggested that one reason why too many people escape justice is the somewhat archaic rules about corroboration and hearsay, with the argument that, as it has already been abolished in civil cases, it should be abolished in criminal cases, too. The Minister should mark the considerable opposition to any such suggestion, which he will find to be as vehement among Conservative Back Benchers as it is in the Opposition.
In this context, I can do no better than remind the Minister of the Thomson committee's third report on criminal procedure. Paragraph 1.09 puts the matter succinctly but in a form that every lawyer practising in the criminal court should know as well as any other piece of information available. It states:
The greatest safeguard against a miscarriage of justice is—and should continue to be—the rule of law that the Crown must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt on corroborated evidence.
I for one will allow no departure from that fundamental part of our criminal law. My justification for that statement is drawn from the fact that I once led the Minister in a murder trial and since then have appeared in the High Court of Justiciary both as Crown counsel and as defence counsel. That experience leaves me in no doubt, whatever may be the case in civil matters, of the fundamental importance in criminal matters of corroboration and the exclusion of hearsay. Any diminution of that is a price that cannot be paid. It is a part of our procedure which cannot be given up.
In that spirit, subject to the comments and observations that I have made, I welcome the Bill and trust that it will have the same speedy and effective progress through this House as it apparently enjoyed in another place.

Sir Hector Monro: The skill and success of the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) as an international athlete is surpassed only by his knowledge of the law. I am therefore reluctant to follow him, as I certainly could not on the track, down the route that he has taken today.
The hon. and learned Gentleman raised a number of interesting points and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will refer to them when he winds up the debate. It would save a great deal of trouble if he would elucidate the point whether there should be one or two witnesses for such legal documents as transfers of stocks and shares in the future. As a trustee of various trusts, I find it a frightful nuisance when solicitors send transfer documents to be signed and one has to find two witnesses, neither of whom may be one's wife. That is often quite difficult at short notice. If that is to go by the board, let the Minister say so today and, if not, why not. I take the point that if two witnesses are required in drawing up a will and all that that means in terms of the law, it should not be too easily altered or cancelled with just one witness to the signature. My hon. Friend the Minister may not have considered that detail in drafting the Bill, but the repercussions are important and it would be interesting to hear his views.
The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East dealt similarly with clause 9, which contains four subsections defining civil proceedings. I hazard a guess that those provisions will occupy the Standing Committee for a good deal longer than many other provisions in the Bill. The clause deals with important items such as arbitration. We know of the importance of agricultural arbitration. It also deals with tribunals. Most of us have experience of constituents appearing before tribunals and there is often some conflict of evidence. If, as my hon. Friend the Minister seemed to indicate, each tribunal is to draw up its own system of evidence, it will certainly take the Committee some time to reach a decision on that.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will also deal with the subject of legal aid. In the past year, many of us

will have had experiences with legal aid which have been unfortunate, to say the least. Not only are there delays in decisions, but there is the important question of the stage at which the solicitor taking on a case can be assured that legal aid will be awarded for the work undertaken. At present, a substantial period may elapse while a solicitor is working on the case when it is far from clear whether legal aid will ultimately be available. I know that there is a running inquiry. I know that inquiries are currently taking place and that my hon. Friend the Minister is deeply involved in these issues, but I hope that he will be able to say something on the subject today.
I am tempted to point out with regard to the cutting of cards in Cumbernauld that, although things have worked out well for the Opposition there—the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) may have invoked the assistance of Paul Daniels—things may not work out so well later in the week when an equally important cut has to take place. I am also sad that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) cannot be with us today as I am sure that he would have had some interesting and perhaps hilarious comments to make on the Bill, given his lukewarm approach to corroboration and hearsay evidence as altered by the Bill.
I note with interest that the Scottish Law Commission report is number 100. The commission has been a tremendous boon to Scotland. It has been looked after by many distinguished lawyers and we should express our gratitude to them, not just for the present report but for the 99 that presumably went before it, assuming that they are indeed numbered in sequence. We should thus give praise to Lord Maxwell and his team for their recommendations. The present report may be shorter than most but, as my hon. Friend the Minister has said, it was produced after the most detailed consultation.
The hon. Member for Garscadden was ragging me for having supported the then Opposition view of the legislation before the House in 1968. As a dutiful Whip, it was my duty to ensure that everyone supported the then Opposition. Twenty years later, after much consultation and further experience, if my hon. Friend the Minister now takes a different view I am sure that it is the result of experience in the courts and I am thus quite happy that there should be a change of attitude.
The Government have brought the Law Commission's reports into use year by year. I am glad that the Bill, which was based on the report dated February 1986, had its Second Reading in another place as soon as November 1987. That shows commendable speed on the part of the Scottish Office in getting on with legislation and implementing the recommendations in the Law Commission's reports.
Like the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East, as soon as I read that the Bill dealt with the corroboration of evidence, I sat up and thought, "Heavens! This is a major change in Scots law. Will civil or criminal evidence be affected? Have the Government taken leave of their senses if it is criminal evidence?" I am glad that it subsequently emerged that the Bill dealt only with civil cases. I would have the gravest reservations if the Bill affected criminal cases too. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will confirm that there is nothing in the pipeline that might change that aspect of Scots law, which has been extremely important for centuries. Scots law has frequently been copied in England


and Wales to the benefit of those countries. However, I would certainly not want any part of our system of evidence in criminal cases changed in Scotland.
I also raised an eyebrow when I heard that we were to change the rules of hearsay evidence. My experience of the law is very limited, and I think back with horror to the time when, as a young officer, I was sent to deal with a summary of evidence for a court martial, never quite understanding what hearsay evidence was. I am only glad to think that no one was successfully convicted as a result of any of my recommendations. The matter was incomprehensible to me then, as it is now. I hope that we shall not make major changes in the rules of hearsay evidence, other than what is proposed in the Bill.
I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary—[Interruption.] It was worth listening to. I am sure that he will clear up some points of information when he winds up. Perhaps he will tell us whether the present rules, while desirable, are not likely to be sensible in every case. I suppose that a layman might say that, under the Bill, rules for the corroboration of evidence will be more flexible than the present rigid rules. Sometimes that inflexibility prevents cases from coming to court, but I hope that the Bill will not have the reverse effect. I hope that we shall not have many more cases coming to court in which there is a competition between witnesses to tell the most outrageous story because they do not need to have corroboration. My one fear is that there may be too much of a swing from difficulty in obtaining correct evidence to ease of providing evidence in civil cases. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will allay our fears on that.
Judging by the Law Commission's report, the key issue seems to be the credibility of witnesses and how they stand up to cross-examination rather than having two or three witnesses trying to tell the same story. The Minister gave a number of helpful examples to illustrate the point about the credibility of witnesses. Presumably, most of the proceedings will be heading towards major damages cases.
I return to the more serious question of the criminal law and reiterate that I strongly agree that we must not change that in Scotland. One paragraph of the Second Reading debate, which took place on 12 November 1987 caught my eye. The Lord Advocate said:
The commission concluded that the existing law offended against its main principles by being unduly complex and excluding potentially valuable evidence. The current rule is that hearsay evidence is generally inadmissible but is subject to certain exceptions. I agree entirely with the commission's broad conclusion."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 November 1987; Vol. 489, c. 1541.]
The commission was right to bring forward the report on corroboration and hearsay and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State were right to introduce the Bill with the support of the Lord Advocate.
One also reads in the Second Reading debate in the other place that in 1985 there were only four jury trials of civil cases. That may not be of major importance. I hope that we shall address the issue of tribunals, of which we have all had experience. It is important that we get the provisions right—including clause 9, with respect to the definition.
We return to the most important point, which is that the reliability of evidence is all-important. That sways me to support the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I am pleased to have the chance of listening to the rustle of dead leaves, because I bear some responsibility for the Bill. I do not recall that it was simple to get my proposal past my Secretary of State at the time. I was a very junior and fresh Minister and those who knew Willie Ross will know some of the difficulties that we had. However, I am sure that I was right and I am sure that the Law Commission was right. I cannot remember which came first—its evidence or my cases.
It is important to know what gave rise to the report. For me, it was two cases. In those days, my constituency covered Port Glasgow. A man who was removing the scaffolding from a ship in the shipyard was found dead, with the scaffolding broken. There was no corroboration of the incident. I fought as hard as I could and went to various lawyers and various places, but I could not win the case because it required corroboration so that everyone knew what had happened. The second case, which was cited by the Scottish Law Commission, involved a woman cleaner on a train. Shunting occurred and she was killed. Everyone knew the cause.
We recognised that the point went wider. Indeed, I was reproved for saying so. It is important that we should welcome the developments, as we have covered much ground. In the debate on the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill 1968, I said:
I wonder whether we should not go even further than we have considered and whether there is a case for exploring the whole case for corroboration in order to ensure that no purely technical requirements prevent justice from being done. This is probably a point at issue. It is not a point we shall explore here because we have taken our respective lines in terms of this Bill".
I was interrupted later by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar)—then the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South—who said:
Is the hon. Gentleman not being a trifle unfair here? There is the factor of the review being carried out by the Law Commission, and we do not want to prejudice that."— [Official Report, Scottish Standing Committee, 9 April 1968; c. 112.]
I said, no, indeed. I stress that point because it is well to remember that the opposition came from not only our side—the Government—in a minor way, but from the Conservatives and, I regret, the Liberals, in the shape of the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel).
The legislation was also opposed by the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) speaking for the Scottish National party, not because it was in line with English law—she said that she could accept that—but because the Bar Association of Glasgow, of which I think she was the secretary at one time, regarded it as unnecessary. I am sorry that the Scottish courts have not applied this practice. We were never under the illusion that it was done to subvert the role of the jury. On the contrary, it provided that no more than the evidence that could be prevented by a technicality should be able to be brought forward and its reliability tested.
A number of other strange things happened. My hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden said that English Tories were present. I regret that the 1968 legislation was


miscellaneous. I congratulate the Government—it is infinitely better to get a law passed in totality than as part of a miscellaneous Bill. The English Tory was Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth, who dealt with the illegitimacy aspect. He said:
I would remind hon. Members that that Committee"—the committee on the law of succession in relation to illegitimate persons—
always referred to illegitimate persons by the good old-fashioned English word 'bastards'. I do not know if there is any special Scottish equivalent. I propose to use that word.
I said:
In Scotland we used to call it a love child. I think that rather better.
Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth gave the astonishing reply:
There are certain implications in the Scottish form which I would not always accept."—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 19 March 1968; c. 35.]
That must have been the first time in history that a Tory found that an illegitimate child could not have been born out of love. We have seen it borne out by the Government's actions over the last nine years. We must rejoice that there has been movement in the legislation under this Government.
There was a fear that the practice of accepting uncorroborated evidence could become a habit. Surely, if anything, it has gone the other way. The procedure has not been used sufficiently and judges have directed against it where it has been used. The emphasis given by the bench has been to remind the jury that it is uncorroborated evidence. I am afraid that, to a jury, that is not always taken as being uncorroborated in a technical sense; it has suggested a whiff of non-existent support. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) that this system could start to replace the normal judicial process.
It is with great pleasure, as well as the rustle of dead leaves, that I welcome the Bill. There is another point which is worth making because so many lawyers are present. I said:
it has been said that it is a folk tradition that reasonable men would demand corroboration. I may not be an authority on the law, but I think that I can claim to be an authority on folk tradition, one essential of which is that natural justice has supremacy over the rules of law. The law is there to serve justice and not to be the master of justice."—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 30 January 1968, c. 55.]
If technicalities prevent injustices, they must be removed. If they must he removed, they must rest on the kernel of good justice—the decision of the bench and the jury. The Bill does no more than say that, and I welcome it.

Mr. Bill Walker: I do not claim to have any special knowledge of legal matters. I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) is not here. He and I have discussed the Bill. He has expressed grave concern about some aspects of it. I shall not attempt to emulate what he would say. First, I do not have his flowery flow of language, and, secondly, I do not have his experience of Scottish courts. If, in future, corroboration is not required, before we make what must be a major change in Scots law, we must be satisfied that the measure will be an improvement on existing practice.
I recognise that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has examined the matter in detail and at length. He will understand that, like my right hon. and

hon. Friends who have already spoken, I want an assurance that this measure will not be the thin end of the wedge and that, at some future date, we shall not see changes in the criminal law in Scotland. As we know, corroboration is an important part of criminal proceedings. The measure is designed to make sure that innocent people cannot be convicted without corroboration.
I remind my hon. Friend that it was judged to be useful and helpful in Scottish criminal cases to introduce a system whereby, when an individual is charged with an offence, the procurator fiscal may send him a warning letter.
My hon. Friend will be aware of my concern about a case that arose in Perth. The person was not charged in Perth—in fact, he was charged in Dundee—but the matter affected some individuals in Perth. In particular, my hon. Friend will be aware that I was concerned that certain Conservative councillors were interviewed by the Tayside police on the basis of some confidential information—that is, the name of the individual who had received the warning letter from the procurator fiscal which, by arrangement, had been sent to his lawyer. That individual complained, and the Tayside police interviewed Conservative councillors and other prominent people in Perth. It is an on-going matter.
It is not my intention this evening to go into the details, but, at some future date, I may be forced to do so if events proceed much further. My colleagues in Perth—city, regional and district councillors—again find themselves being subjected to questioning by Tayside police. For the benefit of the House, I add that all such individuals a re innocent, in that they were just interviewed by the police to try to find out where the leak had occurred. As hon. Members know a great deal about leaks, they will understand that there was concern about the leak of that confidential letter that had been dispatched to a prominent individual in Perth. That individual denies being the individual concerned. There is much at issue.
I raise the matter because I hope that, with a lack of corroboration in civil proceedings, we shall not again run into difficulties or produce more problems than we set out to solve. As I mentioned in regard to sending out letters from the procurator fiscal, it was intended to simplify the legal procedure and reduce the number of individuals being taken to court—at least, that is what I understand was the thinking behind it.
My hon. Friend will be aware also of my concern about how we appoint individuals to crime prevention panels and how the chief constable sets about his task. Perhaps a new code of conduct—

Mr. Doran: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has spent the past five minutes or so discussing what strikes me as criminal proceedings. This is a civil evidence Bill. The hon. Gentleman's contribution has nothing whatever to do with this measure.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): A Second Reading debate is quite wide. The hon. Gentleman is reasonably within order. He is an experienced parliamentarian, and he knows what he is doing.

Mr. Walker: I am astonished at that intervention, especially coming from a lawyer. He more than anyone should know that one must deal with corroboration carefully. I deliberately did not go into all the details of the matter because I did not wish to use my parliamentary


privilege to resolve a matter that may be resolved more amicably elsewhere. I am treading carefuly, but it is a case where the issue of corroboration is important. On Second Reading of an important piece of fundamental Scottish legislation I believe that we should examine carefully evidence that shows that corroboration or lack of it could present us with problems.
The House will appreciate that I require some reassurances. I am unhappy about the aspect of civil proceedings that would change the corroboration of evidence. I am a layman, however, and I am prepared to be convinced by more experienced lawyers—there is an abundance of them around us this evening. I would be happy to take their advice. I merely put on record my concern so that the Minister is aware of it.

Mr. Frank Doran: I give a cautious welcome to the Bill and I wish to concentrate on the issues that add a wee bit more than caution to my welcome.
First, I am concerned about civil juries. The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) was emphatic about that. When the Lord Advocate introduced the Bill on Second Reading in another place he made it clear that he was reviewing the role of the civil jury in Court of Session cases. I should be interested to know whether any progress has been made in that consideration.
My main interest is the Bill's impact on the children's hearing system, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) alluded. I believe that we are making some significant progress. The Minister knows that, at present, the procedure used for most aspects of the children's hearing system in the courts is civil procedure. There has been some abuse in certain sections of that procedure. The removal of the corroboration rule will give tremendous assistance in establishing child abuse and child sexual abuse cases.
I believe that such abuse has existed for a long time at the high levels that are presently being discovered. We now have a more effective way in which to uncover the problem, and more cases are coming to light. The removal of the corroboration rule will certainly assist the reporters to the children's panel and the Scottish courts in discovering more cases and determining them. That will help children in need. I welcome that, and that welcome is shared by the Reporters Association and the various child care associations that are involved in such cases.
I can think of a number of occasions when, as a solicitor in private practice, I have had to discuss with families the sheer frustration that they have felt at the fact that cases have not been dealt with before the courts because the reporter has been unable to prove his case.
Many cases of child abuse and sexual abuse are discovered outside the home, at school or nursery school. Presently, evidence from a teacher, a nursery nurse or a social worker would be inadmissible. The Bill will provide a considerable improvement and the work of the social work departments and children's hearing system will be much more effective because courts will be able to deal with such cases.
There are three questions which I wish to leave with the Minister. I have already mentioned juries, and I am anxious to hear from him about that. In relation to the

children's hearing system, some doubt has been expressed in the Court of Session about the use of civil procedure in connection with child abuse and sexual abuse cases.
At the moment, the Court of Session is reluctant to use a civil basis when it has to determine whether sexual abuse has occurred. Of course, by making that determination, it is saying that a crime has occurred, and the court would be more comfortable using a criminal standard of proof. Section 9 removes the court's option in that respect and in all cases, except the allegation of an offence having been committed by the child, the standard of proof should be a civil standard of proof. I am anxious to receive the Minister's confirmation of that point.
Another point that has already been made, but which I have no difficulty in reinforcing, involves legal aid. As the Minister knows, two tests must be satisfied before legal aid is granted: the means test and the test of probarilis causa, which is that there is a good case to be fought. If we dilute the standard of proof necessary in a court, that must have an effect on the consideration of legal aid applications. It may be that until a case is before the court and the sheriff or the judge sees the evidence and assesses it, it will be difficult to assess exactly what the probarilis causa is.
I am interested to know what instructions, if any, the Minister will give the Scottish Legal Aid Board to guide the board on how to consider those cases. If we have a lower standard of proof, which effectively we shall have if we remove the corroboration and hearsay rules, I hope that there will be a slackening of the restrictions on legal aid applications.
While on legal aid—I declare a vested interest as a solicitor—the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden on the considerable inefficiencies and delays that the introduction of the Scottish Legal Aid Board brought to the legal system in Scotland need to be addressed. Like my hon. Friend, I am anxious to hear what the Minister has to say on those matters.

Mr. Andrew Welsh: I will be brief on a civil law Bill which so far has received a broad welcome. I certainly support the two guiding principles singled out by the Scottish Law Commission, first that
the law should be simplified to the greatest degree consistent with the proper functioning of the law of evidence
and secondly that,
as a general rule all evidence should be admissible unless there is good reason for it to be treated as inadmissible.
Those twin principles of simplification and wider access to evidence in civil law cases are welcomed.
I note also that the Law Commission wishes to proceed with a measure of caution in dealing with the problems built into the present position, while bringing about necessary changes. The solution that the Law Commission has adopted seems to learn from existing answers in the United States, Australia, England and Wales, and should bring sensible improvements into Scottish civil law. However, criminal law is a different matter. I support the opposition expressed by other hon. Members to any extension of those measures into the criminal law. Such a move would be opposed tooth and nail and I hope that the Minister will state that he has no wish to extend these changes into criminal law.
It is interesting to note that the flexibility, informality and ability to introduce change of tribunals is now in some way influencing the more formalised court structure. That


might be the start of a useful trend of modernising and reforming courts in a way which would make them much more accessible to the people.
I hope that the Government will take on board the points raised by various hon. Members about legal aid. Difficulties in gaining access to legal aid and delays in processing applications are causing problems. I hope that the Minister will address himself to these problems.
I pay tribute to the work of the Scottish Law Commission and its consultative document. Perhaps the degree of cross-party unanimity is a reflection of its detailed work. I hope that the proposed changes will avoid the present pitfalls of unnecessary expense, delays and inconvenience, while introducing a relaxation of the present rules in the interests of justice. While sharing some of the reservations that have already been expressed, I should like to endorse the favourable comments that have been made so far, which allow the Bill all-party support.

Mr. James Arbuthnot: It is a pleasure for me to be able to renew my interest in Scottish affairs. I only hope that it will not be necessary in this debate for me to examine my Scottish family tree and to compare it with those of Opposition Members, as happened in the Committee debate on the Housing (Scotland) Bill.
I should like to compare Scottish law with the law in England and Wales, because, as so often happens, Scotland is leading the way. When are the changes that are introduced by this Bill likely to be considered for England? That is a heartfelt plea from a mere English barrister, albeit with Scottish blood, who came into contact with the law of hearsay evidence in quite a large way at the beginning of this decade.
I was involved for several years in a case in the chancery division of the High Court in England, called Baden Delvaux v. Societe Generale. It lasted 108 days in the court of first instance and a mere three weeks in the Court of Appeal, and it founded my pension fund. The main question in the case was whether a bank which had trust funds in its accounts should he held responsible for a fraudulent misappropriation of those funds by a signatory to the account. It depended on the extent of the bank's knowledge of the fraud and on whether there had actually been a fraud in the first place. It was my job in that case to prove that there had been a fraud.
The fraud had arisen in the Investors Overseas Services empire because of the involvement of a gang of fraudsters led by Mr. Robert Vesco. Mr. Vesco was, and probably still is, a brilliant man who, sadly, turned his brilliance to crime and as a result is now living in terror of being found in the jurisdiction of the United States of America. I understand that his current occupation is drug-running in the Caribbean. In the 1970s, he was involved in defrauding the investors in the IOS empire of their money. He did it by moving money around between companies, setting up a company here, changing a share structure there, and moving bearer shares between Switzerland and Costa Rica, Panama and the Bahamas, and between countries that I had hardly heard of, such as the Netherlands Antilles and Curacao, which I had thought was a drink.
The essence of the fraud was that the more complicated it was, the more likely it was to succeed. And complicated it was, and succeed it did, at least in part. Mr. Vesco ended

up extremely rich—with his own private plane, with jacuzzi on board—with the then Government of the Bahamas close to, if not actually in, his pocket, and with extra perks that not many of us would even dream about.
It was my job to prove the movements of the money, in circumstances where the movements had been deliberately concealed. The job involved searching for depositions and statements—all hearsay statements—made in different jurisdictions all over the world. When I say that the IOS fraud has spawned well over 200 cases in different jurisdictions, it will be appreciated that the job was huge.
Under the Civil Evidence Act 1968, it was necessary to prove it all by serving notices. I drafted four such notices. which took several months. I was not working unduly slowly. It must be remembered that there were several hundred documents in each notice. The documents that we were relying on were documents of the highest repute, such as depositions taken on oath by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States of America and judgments of courts in the United States of America and Canada. However, for each, the requirements of the Civil Evidence Act 1968 had to be followed.
The notices were extremely complicated, as must be expected, because so were the documents to which they referred. The documents in court, which were a tiny fraction of the documents that had to be considered in the case, were well over 15,000 pages long and it took many weeks simply to read them to the court. In the event, although we had been through this hugely laborious process, the existence of the fraud and the truth of the documents were not even seriously challenged. The process cost one of the litigants hundreds of thousands of pounds. I have to doubt whether it was worth while. It would have been far better if in the English courts there had been a simple rule such as that which will be introduced by the Bill.
I welcome the Bill not only for what it does but for what it does not do. It represents a real step forward in the development of the law of evidence, because the unnecessary retention of complex rules can lead to the law being seen as existing only for its own purposes rather than serving the best interests of those who have a genuine grievance to bring before the courts.
As a lawyer, I believe that it is my job to discourage people from going to law, and it is our job as Members of Parliament to make sure that, if people have to go to law, that law is as simple as possible. The main beneficiary of the law should be not the lawyer but the litigant. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) said that simplification should not be at the expense of justice. In a sense, he is right, but justice is a relative term. If, in order to achieve justice, litigants are forced to go through a hugely expensive and cumbersome process which causes delay and frightens them off, one should question whether they are in pursuit of genuine justice, because absolute perfection in a legal system can, paradoxically, be most unjust.
I agree entirely with the Scottish Law Commission's adherence to the guiding principle of a law of evidence which is as simple as possible but which renders a maximum amount of evidence admissible. The Bill moves the existing law towards that aim, which is most desirable, but at the same time it recognises the good sense of legal advisers and judges preventing the courts from becoming a free-for-all, with cases proceeding on uncorroborated and hearsay evidence.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) said that, if there were no opportunity to test evidence because there had been no notice, for example under the Civil Evidence Act, then surely that evidence would be of little probative value. Yes, he is right, but that is something which the judge ought to be able to take into account. Like the absence of corroboration, it should simply be a factor, not something that leads to total exclusion of the evidence.
The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) rightly said that hearsay evidence is not the best evidence, but are we to say that not only is it not the best, but neither is it ever good enough? That should be up to the judge. As my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate said:
Although parties will be able to rely upon uncorroborated evidence and also hearsay evidence, it seems to me that prudent legal advisers will continue to seek to establish their cases beyond peradventure. On that basis I would expect that they will continue to lead corroborative evidence, where it is available, and to bring the makers of statements before the courts whenever possible in order that the weightiest evidence can be adduced for proof of their case."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 November 1987; Vol. 489, c. 1544.]
I said that I welcome the Bill for what it does not do as well as for what it does, and what I have just said is a good reason for not extending the Bill to criminal cases, because a jury might have a lot more difficulty over the distinction of the weight to be attributed to evidence rather than to its admissibility—much more difficulty than a judge would have.
I welcome the Bill as a move in the right direction. It is the right direction for evidence in civil cases but above all, it is the right direction for the law as a whole. Our laws should be simple and easy to understand, not only by a lawyer but by the litigant. In that respect the Bill is a model for other legislation.

Mr. Barry Field: As my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) said, the Scottish Law Commission's report was its 100th report. It received 17 representations and made 32 recommendations. I welcome the Bill. It is a worthwhile reform of an important area of the law that can touch the lives of everyone in Scotland.
Clause 8 deals with family representation and relationships. These matters are clearly of substantial importance to those involved. The clause covers divorce, legitimacy and declarator or nullity of marriage. The Bill's removal of the requirement for corroboration and the rule against hearsay will apply to these actions. I am sure that that is right.
The Scottish Law Commission said that at one time the standard of proof in certain divorce actions was proof beyond reasonable doubt. That has now been changed to the normal civil standard of proof on a balance of probability. Actions of this type are therefore on the same basis as other civil proceedings, and there is no reason to distinguish these cases from other civil cases in terms of corroboration and hearsay. However, the Bill quite properly retains the rule that a decree cannot be granted until the grounds of action have been established by evidence.
Hon. Members who have studied the Scottish Law Commission's report will know that this rule stems from the fact that questions about the status of the parties concerned are involved and that this has effect beyond the parties to the litigation. The rule means that, even if a case is undefended, the pursuer has to establish his case to the satisfaction of the court. Because of the importance of these cases and their wide effect, I am sure that hon. Members will agree that the Bill takes the correct line by restating in modern form the rule that is contained in an Act of 1830.
This also has the benefit of putting it beyond doubt that the rule also applies to actions in the sheriff court. This is important since hon. Members will know that the sheriff courts are able to hear divorce actions. This is a good example of justice being made available at least cost to those concerned. People can now have a divorce action heard in a local court rather than having to go to Edinburgh.
There is another important part of this Bill. Those who have taken the trouble to read the Scottish Law Commission's report will be surprised to see in paragraph 3·67 that business books are presumed at common law to be accurate if they have been regularly checked. They will frequently contain a large element of hearsay.
The Bill is a welcome development of the law of evidence. It is clearly important that the law of evidence should keep pace with the needs of the day. This is especially apparent in the way that the Bill deals with computer evidence. We are all aware of the extremely fast pace of computer technology. Therefore, it seems odd that parties who wish to rely on that sort of evidence must at present go through a complex set of rules formulated in 1968. Perhaps that was not quite in the infancy of computer technology, but it was certainly in its early days.
Hon. Members who have looked at the lengthy sections 13 to 15 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1968 will see the Bill as a necessary improvement. This is a welcome measure that removes rigid evidential rules that are considered to be against the interests of justice. If a more satisfactory method of resolving disputes results, that must be of benefit to those who under the present arrangements can see no way of bringing a genuine grievance before the courts.
I can do no better than refer the House to column 1544 of their noble Lordships' deliberations, in which the Lord Advocate concluded:
I do not see this Bill as being a charter for lazy lawyers, if any such being exists. What this Bill will do is ensure that the courts will have before them as much relevant evidence as possible. As a result neither party to an action will suffer injustice simply because potentially valuable evidence is excluded thus rendering an otherwise good case either incapable of prosecution or doomed to failure."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 November 1987; Vol. 489, c. 1544.]
For those reasons, I have no hesitation in recommending the Bill to the House. It is a satisfactory development of the law of evidence to met the needs of a modern society, and I welcome it.

Mr. John Home Robertson: I have no doubt that the good people of the Isle of Wight can rest easy in their beds tonight, in the knowledge that their Member of Parliament has given such detailed consideration to a specifically Scottish piece of legislation. I am sure


that it will come as quite a surprise to a number of people in the towns of Cowes, Ryde and Shanklin to know that this is a matter of such deep interest to him.

Mr. Barry Field: Surely the hon. Gentleman has it in his heart to acknowledge the charity, excellence and diversity of the interests of hon. Members who represent island constituencies, whether it be in the north of Scotland or the south of England.

Mr. Home Robertson: The great difference is that we do not find many Conservatives representing islands or anywhere else in Scotland. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman was put up by the Government Whips to make his contribution. It may come as an alarming surprise to him to learn that, having taken part in a debate on the Floor of the House, he is likely to be appointed to the Standing Committee.
I join other hon. Members—including the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field)—in supporting the objectives of the Bill. In the Minister's opening remarks I was distressed to hear him make the vulgar suggestion that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) might build a yellow brick wall in what we all know is a red sandstone area, but I was particularly relieved to hear him say that the Government are always ready to learn from experience.
Having followed the proceedings of the Conservative party conference in Perth last weekend, I must say that I saw precious little evidence that the Government were learning anything from experience, but of course we welcome any signs of interest in evidence nowadays on the part of Scottish Ministers. I am afraid that what we heard from the Conservative party conference seemed to be a minority party denying any evidence that had come to it through the electoral process, or indeed from anything else in Scotland.
I was particularly intrigued to read clause 3 of the Bill, which states:
a statement … shall he admissible as evidence in so far as it tends to reflect favourably or unfavourably on that person's credibility.
In Scotland, we pay particular attention to the credibility of one particular citizen of Edinburgh, namely the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind). If we compare the statements that he made in 1978 with those that he makes in 1988 on questions such as the devolution of power and the decentralisation of government in the United Kingdom and in Scotland, we can only conclude that he is not a reliable or credible witness in any circumstances.
I am grateful to all the lawyers on both sides of the House who have taken part in the debate for the clarity of their contributions. I hope that they are not charging their efforts to the legal aid fund or to anyone else. It seems, however, that there is clear general support for the changes proposed in the Bill on the part of both the advocates and the solicitors represented in the House. Indeed, the only comment by the Law Society of Scotland that has been drawn to my attention has been a caution against any extension of the principles of the Bill into criminal proceedings in Scotland. That point has been made by a number of hon. Members, particularly the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell). It would be a very alarming development if the Bill were seen in any way as a precedent to be pursued into criminal law.
My qualification to take part in the debate is limited, to say the least, except that the farming industry has at least its fair share of hearsay, which one gets from time to time following harvest, and there is a great deal of uncorroborated evidence when accounts come to be submitted to the Inland Revenue.
The nearest that I ever got to civil proceedings was after an interesting event that you may have noticed, Mr. Speaker, which was reported in certain newspapers on 9 March this year. Some newspapers, including one that only passes for a newspaper in Scotland, printed clearly maliciously defamatory statements about myself, concerning my conduct in the House. It was entirely on the uncorroborated hearsay evidence provided by no less a person than the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). Evidently hearsay is admissible in some areas. I suspect that there might be more interest in civil proceedings in Scotland when we deal with all the litigation that is likely to flow from the poll tax legislation, which will be coming shortly.
Comments have been made about the apparent breach in the Bill of two long-standing principles of Scots law, which bar hearsay and uncorroborated evidence. We all recognise the frustration that the parties in civil cases are likely to feel, when they may be thwarted on pure technicalities in a court of law. I am sure that we are all familiar with the—I hope—apocryphal story about an exasperated sheriff who was supposed to reject a defence of alibi with the memorable comment, "If ye hadna' been there ye widna' be here." That point has been made from time to time.
However, I accept that it should be possible for a court to reach a conclusion on the basis of an overwhelming case that includes elements of hearsay or uncorroborated evidence. I trust—I hope that the Minister will confirm that it is the Government's intention at any rate—that that should be the exception rather than the rule. I presume that a court may be obliged only to admit hearsay or uncorroborated evidence, but not necessarily to accept such evidence. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to keep an eye on that. We want the Minister to make it clear that it is not the Government's intention to apply similar principles to criminal law.
My hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden and the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) referred to the operation of the legal aid scheme at present and the fact that retrospective claims are being disallowed when it should be possible to allow them. There is no question but that the new rules are delaying justice and in some cases interfering with the course of justice. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to say that there is a prospect of a review of that part of the legal aid regulations.
Judging by the debate, we shall have an interesting Committee stage. We look forward to hearing from the hon. Members for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) and for Isle of Wight. We have heard from the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford before and we know that he takes a deep interest in Scottish affairs. Whether he takes as much interest in the affairs of Wanstead and Woodford is not so clear. The one absentee from the debate has been, sadly, the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). If only it were in order or possible for the Committee proceedings to be adjourned from this building to Fordell castle, we might have even more enlightened debates in those surroundings.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: By leave of the House, I am glad to respond to the debate. It was extremely good and there was a high standard of speeches. It was nice to hear the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) confirm the merits of the path that we are treading because he piloted through the Bill with a similar provision 20 years ago. He mentioned the human cases involving his constituents. The evidence that he gave the House was very much that that provision has been in the interests of justice. I believe that to be the case.
I should like to answer as many questions as I can, but first I shall deal quickly with legal aid. We had a debate on a statutory instrument in Committee and further improvements are being prepared. A further statutory instrument will be introduced and it will be thoroughly debated in due course. We have kept in touch with the Law Society on that.
The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), who spoke well, asked about dental tribunals. He was correct that certain tribunals are allowed to regulate their procedures. That would include the retention of corroboration or hearsay as appropriate. Whether they retain their strict rules would be a matter for those responsible for those proceedings.
I shall go through the hon. and learned Gentleman's questions with great care before the Committee, but perhaps I should deal now with one that relates to the retention of documents relating to a will. The Scottish Law Commission is considering that matter. Whether sole evidence on the retention of documents is sufficient is a matter for the court to decide on the basis of whether it is satisfied by the evidence. The cases mentioned in relation to section 9 were from its early days and since then its application has relaxed. The cases of Weir v. UCS Ltd. and Thomson v. Tough Ropes Ltd. are interesting in that area.
I was asked about precognitions which would attack credibility. The reason why a precognition is excluded is because it is a summary of evidence likely to be available from a witness. It is different in nature from a statement uttered by a witness. On family relationships and actions and whether evidence is needed from someone other than a party to the marriage, the present system exists to guard against the risk of collusion between the two parties. The evidence can be wholly or partially from a third party. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East has missed some of the compliments that I paid him. I vividly remember the case when I was his junior counsel and, despite our immense dedication and thoroughness, our united efforts were to no avail.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) also asked about section 9. There has been a change in judicial attitudes which is wholly to the good. Page 3 of the Law Commission report gives a lengthy explanation by Lord Stott of his attitude in declaring against Maclaren v. Caldwells Paper Mill Company. He explains that there should be a general remedy, and states that there is an injustice arising from a rule whereby a court convinced that an injured man has given a truthful account of his accident, is nevertheless bound to reject it from the lack of corroboration.
The hon. Members for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Doran) and for Garscadden asked about civil juries. Civil jury

trials were abolished in sheriff courts in 1980. The Government want to have the view of interested parties, and the Lord Advocate will carry out a consultation. I cannot be more specific about the time scale. It has been said that there was only a small number of responses to the Scottish Law Commission. That may be so, but one must also take into account that others who were consulted were content with the broad proposals. Corroboration as a safeguard will remain and it is for the courts to rely on the best evidence.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) raised several relevant points. The Bill applies equally to pursuer and defendant. It is up to the pursuer to prove his case, as it is at present.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro)—

Mr. Brian Wilson: Everyone in the Chamber is anxious to hear the Minister's response to the many relevant points made by the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith).

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I shall endeavour to answer all the important questions that my right hon. Friend asked. One related to the rectification of the Faculty of Advocates and the Scottish Law Commission. My right hon. Friend will be pleased to read in the report that there is no need for rectification. The faculty was in favour of the commission's broad proposals, with the exception of the hearsay notice procedure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries, in a very good speech, commended the Bill. The best evidence available should always be given due weight by the court. My hon. Friend asked about witness to documents. Clause 5 would enable a business document to be relied upon without further authentication, but if the document was challenged the court could direct that its origin and authenticity be established by evidence. Therefore, someone might have to provide that he had signed a document.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) asked whether the provision in respect of civil juries was the thin end of the wedge in relation to criminal proceedings. I repeat that the Scottish Law Commission will be considering the matter, but on a completely separate basis.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South made an interesting comment on child abuse cases. I believe that the Bill meets his point.
The hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh) welcomed the Bill, and I noted especially what he said about legal aid.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) mentioned the need for simplicity and said that the maximum amount of evidence should be admissible. He asked about the different procedures on evidence in England and Scotland. That is a matter for the Lord Chancellor. Reform of the procedures has been mentioned in the current civil justice review which has been published. I am sure that the Lord Chancellor will be interested in what my hon. Friend said.
I agreed entirely with the theme taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field): what really matter are the interests of justice.
Many points have been made in this extremely useful debate. They will be studied closely before the Committee stage of the Bill. The Bill must achieve an evidential regime which, as far as possible, does not contain technical barriers to the placing before the courts of evidence that will serve the best interests of justice. The Bill meets the principles of simplicity and general admissibility. It has been welcomed because it tries to remove artificial barriers to an otherwise honest and credible case that should at least have the wisdom of the judiciary applied to it.
Several hon. Members asked about our experience. In tribunals, actions for damages for personal injuries and undefended divorce actions, the relaxation of evidential rules has benefited all concerned.
The hon. Member for Garscadden extolled the merits of the abolition of corroboration. In the past, the main difference of opinion arose because of the attitudes that the respective parties adopted 20 years ago. I am glad that we have come some way since then and that the Scottish Law Commission's qualities in assessing the evidence have been well recognised.
Sheriff Macphail and his research party said of the absence of rules against hearsay in tribunals:
The divergence in this respect between the courts on the one hand and arbitration, tribunals and inquiries on the other has come to appear more and more noticeable and difficult to justify.
We can take comfort from past examples in that regard.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside asked about the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates. Those bodies submitted substantial comments. The Law Society of Scotland raised a number of issues with my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate following the introduction of the Bill in another place. I am pleased to say that the Law Society of Scotland has written a letter that states:
The Committee asked me to thank you for explaining the position and to let you know that as far as the Committee was concerned the matter would not be taken any further.
That shows that it was satisfied with this measure.
I was asked about the effect of the Bill on legal aid. I said earlier that the existing strict rules of corroboration and hearsay can have unacceptable consequences for the preparation of cases and time being taken up in court. The hon. Member for Angus, East mentioned the inconvenience and expense of the rules. Parties will not have to corroborate every point of their case. Nor will they have to bring witnesses—sometimes at disproportionate cost—to speak to facts that are not in dispute.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside asked whether there would be a flood of cases, thus creating difficulties for legal aid. I am able to dispel that fear, as the Scottish Legal Aid Board has been consulted and does not think that the Bill will create any difficulties. My right hon. Friend will not expect me to say whether a particular case will qualify for legal aid, because that will be a matter for the Scottish Legal Aid Board.
We want to ensure that in all cases the best evidence available is brought forward. In most cases, corroboration will be relied on so that the courts have the best evidence. So far as possible, the courts will seek to call the witnesses who have made statements. That does not seem to represent a major change to what happens at present. It is unlikely to create difficulties with legal aid.
As to the proposed notice procedure regarding hearsay evidence, the Association of Sheriffs Principal suggested that the procedure was unduly complicated. The Scottish Law Commission's main recommendation removed hearsay restrictions and allied the notice procedure to the powers of the court to exclude hearsay evidence. That had the effect of bringing back the rule against hearsay evidence.
The Scottish Law Commission accepted that the content of a Bill is a matter for the Government. There have been thorough discussions with the Scottish Law Commission, and it appreciated the reason for the departure, in some respects, from its original proposals. I am glad to be able to reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside that for documents to be admitted as proof of statements contained in them, copy documents will have to be submitted in place of them.
My right hon. Friend asked about multiple hearsay. The witness giving hearsay evidence in court may recount a statement that is itself hearsay, but what will always weigh most heavily with the court is the best evidence. I fully appreciate the concern expressed by hon. Members of the extension of the Bill into criminal legal aid matters.
I believe that the Bill will enhance the ability of the Scottish legal system to provide an efficient and speedy service meeting the ends of justice.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

Housing Benefit (Scotland)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Budgen.]

Mr. Speaker: As the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) is not present, I call the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) to move the second Adjournment.

10 pm

Mr. Brian Wilson: This will be yet another lesson for the Scottish Tories—that deviousness gets them nowhere. Despite their filibuster, in which the Minister spoke for 47 minutes to kick off and poor benighted souls from the Isle of Wight and from Wanstead and Woodford were trotted in to prolong the debate, at the end of the day they will have to face the music, because someone has failed to turn up from Northern Ireland, despite their best efforts.
It is timely and valuable that the House should have a further opportunity to debate housing benefit, especially in the Scottish context, and for the Government to have to answer for the burden that they have imposed on local authorities doing their best to maintain decent housing conditions, despite cuts on every front in the past 10 years. Local authorities now have to cope with the fantastic bureaucratic mess of the Government's new housing benefit system. As Members of all parties know, at our surgeries every week and in our postbags every day there come tales of the human misery inflicted on decent people trying to make ends meet as a result of the changes in housing benefit. To call them changes is a euphemism. We are talking about savage cuts. The people at the sharp end, who have had to send out the calculations, have been the local authorities. As usual, the Government have treated them with the utmost contempt.
It is worse than that. After a few weeks of panic in the Tory ranks, the Government come along again claiming to recognise the political disaster that they have visited upon themselves and announcing cosmetic changes. We are told that great magnanimity is to be shown in the clawback, as it were, of the cuts in housing benefit. And who has to recalculate the benefit and deal with the confused folk trying to find out what is happening? Yet again, the local authorities are at the sharp end. And who is to pay for the recalculation, for the manpower and computer effort, not to mention the cost of all this in human misery? I hope that the Minister will tell us today that the Government intend to foot every penny of the bill which has resulted from the confusion that the Government have visited on local authorities.
In towns such as Kilbirnie, Saltcoats and Ardrossan in my constituency, where unemployment is running at rates up to 30 per cent., I know the suffering and heartbreak that has been caused when folk have been told that they face rent and rate increases of £10 or even £20 per week. What kind of Government impose that kind of shock on people already struggling to make ends meet? Many are elderly or disabled, but that is the way in which they have been treated by the Government. I shall not go into specific examples as every Member knows the truth of what I am saying and I wish to allow time for my hon. Friends to participate in the debate.
We then come to the deception that the Government visited on the House when the Secretary of State for Social

Services came back to announce the package dreamed up in an attempt to head off the worst of the political consequences for the Conservative party. They came back to talk about the £6,000 savings rule, principally because it affected the client group in which they were most interested for electoral purposes. Many elderly people in my constituency would have been affected by that rule, but relatively few will have been assisted by the changes that the Government announced. Those affected by the £6,000 rule, however, will not be the ones to suffer most. The real suffering will be experienced by those who would regard it as a joke in poor taste to suggest that they had £600 or £60 of savings, never mind £6,000. There was nothing in the Government's package to protect them.
A clear attempt was made to imply that no one would be paying more than £2·50 a week more in rent and rates than before April. That is simply an untruth. To the £2·50 in housing benefit cut have to be added the rent increases that the Government have forced upon local authorities. To the £2·50 and the rent increases has to be added the 20 per cent. rates rule introduced by the Government by sleight of hand. There are other elements, too. Many people will still be paying £7, £8 or £9 per week more in rent and rates than they were before 1 April. These are the very poorest people in our communities and that is the scandal of the Government's actions.
I want to make it clear that it is not the local authorities that are imposing the increases. The local authorities will seek to protect people from the worst impact of the Government's actions. Ministers plead concern and say that something has been done to help people out. Yet at the same time they cannot deny that many of those in my constituency and throughout the country—those with the least means in our society—will be hit by rent and rate increases accounting for upwards of 10 per cent. of their total income.
The Prime Minister made a grotesque public relations trip to Glasgow on Saturday to try to capture a minute amount of good publicity. She intruded shamelessly upon a great Scottish occasion. She was treated with contempt, and the ultimate contempt was simply to ignore her unwanted presence. If the Prime Minister is to make excursions to Glasgow to exude human concern, let her start by addressing the 140,000 people in that city—the poorest people in that city—affected by the cuts in housing benefit. Let her announce that the poll tax is to be done away with instead of persecuting those same people. Let us not have the window dressing of human concern, but the substance of human concern. That does not involve going to football matches; it involves showing compassion and decency towards those who stood on the Hampden terraces on Saturday.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I am grateful for the opportunity of participating in the debate, and to all those who contributed towards our obtaining it.
I have been a Member of Parliament for more than 20 years. Without question the past five weeks has been the worst period that I have known in terms of human fear, suffering and tears. The letters have been heart-rending. The way in which the Government have acted in introducing the changes is deplorable. The ineffectiveness of the Government's attempt to remedy matters has been even more deplorable. The reason for that was underlined


by the astonishing answer that the Prime Minister gave when she was challenged on the effect of the housing benefit decisions. She said that this was a matter for local authorities. That is quite extraordinary. The measure was introduced by the Government. The speed with which they acted suggests that they may have been stupid, and if they did not know the consequences of their actions a year ago, they are worse than stupid—they are wicked.
I wish to draw three cases to the attention of the Under-Secretary. The first concerns a widow of 57. She has no £3,000 and no £6,000. She receives £41·50 a week. Her rent and rates have increased by a further £10 a week. That is an increase demanding 25 per cent. of her income.
There is another woman, who is doing exactly what the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) says should be done. That single woman goes out to work in difficult circumstances, She has a job, through the Manpower Services Commission scheme, doing 30 hours a week for less than £60. She has to take two buses to get to her work. She, too, has lost almost £10. After paying for her bus fares and rates and having her telephone taken out—her only link with her family-she is left with £17 a week for heating, lighting and food. She asks: "How can I do this?" I have sent her letter to the Prime Minister, because I cannot answer it.
These measures have been brought in within weeks of a Budget that gave nearly £2 billion away to the richest 5 per cent. of the community. This caused anger. The Opposition were accused of chanting, "Shame." I confess that I chanted, "Shame," and I meant it. I did it not as part of an organised team but because I knew the Budget's effect. I knew what could have been done with £2 billion. Five weeks later, the so-called poor man's Budget has been slashed, in one case to 25 per cent. That is appalling. We are told that the problems will be solved because the Government have responded to the pleas, but their response is inadequate. It does not deal with 90 per cent. of the cases.
The Government have been obsessed with people's capital. The adjustment from £6,000 to £8,000 is small enough but there are worse cases—people on low wages and people on small pensions. There is the woman of 67 with arthritis and her husband of 72 with angina, whose weekly income of just over £60 has been cut by about £10. They are the worst cases, and the £2·50 provision will not solve their problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) said that it does not deal with the problem. At best, these people will have to pay £2·50, plus rent increases, plus 20 per cent. of their rates. I hope that the Minister will come up with some rapid answers because there is deep human misery in every poor area of Britain.

Mr. Donald Dewar: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) for giving me a few minutes to intervene in his Adjournment debate. I do not want to go over the ground that has been eloquently sketched by my hon. Friends the Members for Cunninghame, North and for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan). I endorse their feelings.
This has been a bad time for many people of modest means living in difficult circumstances. In a strange way, it has been a bad time for elected representatives. Like my colleagues, I cannot remember ever being so stuck for

consolation or advice as in the past week or two. It is now commonplace to be approached by people who have been given the prospect of having to pay an increase in their housing costs in one month that exceeds their weekly income. With simple, stark finality we are told, "We cannot find the money, we cannot pay it. With the best will in the world, it cannot be done." We know that that is true and we cannot wish that fact away.
In fairness, it should be said that there have been some signs of repentance. The Secretary of State for Social Services said that the loss would be restricted to £2·50. The comment has been well made that that is only a partial account of what is happening and that the reservations, caveats and small print mean that almost everyone will still be a substantial loser. I still have in my constituency people who are not of pensionable age, who do not have children living with them in the family and who are not in receipt of any of the special disability benefits that bring them within the cover of the so-called protection. They are the low paid. Because they are low paid and not covered, they are still left in the original, frightening quandary that my hon. Friends have described in the past few minutes.
I want the Minister to give us some reassurance and some evidence that the Scottish Office, which, after all, is responsible for housing and for the operation of housing departments, has thought the matter through and that in the rather inadequate arrangements that have already been announced, a workable system is beginning to take shape. I am sure that the Minister has been giving a great deal of thought to the matter. I should like him to share with us his ideas of how the new system will work.
As I understand it, a DHSS unit is to be set up in Glasgow to deal with the United Kingdom. The onus will be on an individual applicant to look to that unit for the protection that may be available, that may lead to a lessening of the financial blow that he or she faces. I want the Minister to explain exactly how that system will work and how it relates to housing departments in Scotland. For example, will they have to continue for several months to take the new housing costs, rent and rate calculations, according to the new scales? There has been talk about the unit coming into operation only in July. The unit will then be inundated with work. Will people have to pay the new higher scales for a considerable period, without the benefit of any of the protection that has been announced? What are the duties of local authorities? How do they mesh into the system? Can they supply to the DHSS lists of those who are to get some help? Can we speed up the process?
It is important to make the point about the cruelty—I use that word with considerable seriousness—that has been built into the operation and the way in which it has been mishandled. Given that disaster, I should like the Minister to explain exactly what will happen. If he does that and if, on Saturday-as inevitably will occur—someone comes to me, facing an increase in their housing costs of about £60, £70, £80 or—as happened last Saturday—£90 a month, although they live on benefit, instead of saying something vague and indefinite, such as "There will be some measure of help. I do not know when or how it will operate, because it is not clear," I shall be able to say, "I have talked and listened to the Scottish Office Minister. He has been able to explain to me exactly what will happen, how you apply, what the local housing department has to supply the DHSS with in the way of records and information, when you can expect to get help and how it will be calculated."


The Minister has 13 minutes. He can give us a great deal of information, which must be available. It would be a genuine service to me as a constituency hon. Member if he could do something to put into order the chaos, dismay and the damage that his colleagues' policies have brought to my constituency.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I am glad to respond to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) on his ingenuity in getting the debate.
These are serious and important measures. The subject of the debate is the impact of housing benefit changes on housing departments of Scottish local authorities. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate where my responsibilities and those of the DHSS begin and end. I assure him that, in so far as he has raised matters that relate more to the DHSS than to the Scottish Office, such matters will be drawn to its attention. Full information will be provided to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) on the points that he mentioned. I shall deal as fully as I can with what I see the position to be.
Not a few hon. Members will be impressed by the procedural canniness with which the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North obtained the debate at such short notice. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is responsible for housing benefit, but it might assist the hon. Gentleman if I comment briefly on the features of the reformed housing benefit system that was introduced. I shall then examine the effect that the system may have on housing departments in Scottish local authorities.
I emphasise that the first purpose is to make the new scheme simpler, because it will be aligned with the rules for income support and family credit. That means that people will not be so confused about what they are entitled to. The second purpose is to make the system fairer. People will be treated alike, whether or not they are in work, and the worst features of the poverty trap under the old scheme will be eliminated. It is worth noting that the Secretary of State for Social Services gave the undertaking that his Department would monitor the general effects of the reforms to housing benefits and the effects of the wider package of reforms that he introduced.
One feature of the new scheme that will be of interest to pensioners is the pension premium, which will benefit pensioners—the rates will be higher for those over the age of 80. It is true that pensioners will be the biggest group to be affected by the benefit changes and that is inevitable. It is widely appreciated that, at present, pensioners are by far the largest group of housing benefit recipients. They account for about 60 per cent. of recipients.
Much has been said about the new capital rules and I do not intend to rehearse the arguments about them tonight. It should not be forgotten that under the former system any income generated by savings was taken into account. At present, capital of less than £3,000 and any income generated from it will be disregarded in the benefit calculation. That will be of benefit to pensioners, especially those with small amounts of savings.
The disabled are another group who have done relatively well in the changeover from the old to the new system. The premiums for the sick and the disabled, for example, are much higher than the former enhancements for the disabled. One important point that I wish to emphasis is that the new housing benefit arrangements will insulate tenants from rent increases if they are receiving housing benefit. That means that even those tenants who have a small portion of their rent paid by housing benefit will receive a pound for pound increase in their benefit to match any subsequent increases in their rent.
I have outlined some particular features of the new scheme that I feel are particularly worthy of the House's attention. I believe that the former system placed an unacceptable burden upon the taxpayer.

Mr. Dewar: rose—

Mr. John Home Robertson: rose—

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I will not give way, as I have a lot to say in response. The fact that the former system covered approximately one household in three was not justified by any evidence of need. The changes are designed to protect the poorest and to direct resources more effectively to where they are needed most.

Mr. Home Robertson: rose—

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: No, I will not give way.
I believe that the changes to housing benefit cannot be seen in isolation from other aspects of Government policy. The need to control inflation and public expenditure is without doubt just as important now as when we first came to office. There is no denying the fact that everyone benefits from lower inflation, especially pensioners and others on fixed income.
Any fundamental change in any scheme of support will obviously produce gainers and losers. There is no way of avoiding that. The Government believe that approximately one half of pensioners on income-related benefits will gain under the new scheme and that, consequently, approximately one half will lose. Generally those who lose will be relatively better off.

Mr. Dewar: rose—

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: No, I must press on.
I believe that to direct help first and foremost to the poorest and most vulnerable of our society is a sound and entirely defensible principle of social policy.

Mr. Wilson: Can the Minister tell us where the poorest begin and the less poor end? The people who come to my surgeries and who write to me are, by any humane definition of the poorest, within that category. In the Minister's world, does somebody need to be living in a cardboard box before he is regarded as one of the poorest?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The Secretary of State for Social Services listened carefully to the representations that were made by hon. Members; that was why he came forward with changes that took into account the varying circumstances.
I have described the basis of the thinking that lay behind the reforms to housing benefit. I shall now consider the effect that those reforms may have on the housing departments of Scottish local authorities. As I have already said, I believe that the new scheme is simpler. Consequently, the task of administering it by local


authorities will be that much easier. There will be fewer exceptions, rules will be aligned across a wide range of benefits, there will be one taper instead of six so there should be fewer mistakes in assessing individual benefit levels than in the past. It is true that the Government are changing the subsidy arrangements by which we pay back local authorities for their benefit and administration costs. We are doing this to encourage efficient administration.

Mr. Dewar: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: No, I shall not.
Councils will still receive a fair level of support for costs reasonably incurred, but we are giving them firm incentives to control costs and improve efficiency.

Mr. Dewar: Before the Minister concludes, will he tell us what advice he would give to someone who is faced with a substantial increase in their housing costs? How will he explain what will happen in the next month or two? How will the Minister tell them to get the protection that he has been talking about, and relate that to the restriction of £2·50? How is it going to work, and what kind of information will they have to supply, to whom and when?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Member for Garscadden asked a lot questions all rolled into one. He is asking what one would say to one's constituents. I will tell him exactly. The first point is to ascertain whether the constituent is claiming all the allowances to which he or she is entitled. Frankly, in some cases they are not doing that. It is important to go thoroughly into the facts. The specific DHSS levels are the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Social Services.
In conclusion, I affirm that the Government have struck a careful balance in their reform of housing benefit between the need to reflect the ever-increasing cost and scope of the scheme, the need to simplify and the need to protect the poorest. I believe also that the considerable simplifications introduced by the new scheme will benefit local authorities, contrary to the assertions that have been made.

Mr. Home Robertson: It would be helpful if the Minister could reply to some of the points put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar). However, perhaps the most interesting question that our constituents would like the Minister to answer is how he could manage to live, after paying for his housing costs, on as little as £14 a week. Would he be prepared to do that? If not, why should his or my constituents be expected to do that?

Mr. Wilson: This is an astonishing occasion. Hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland are living in the direst poverty and fear because of this issue. Conservative Members failed to head off a half-hour debate on this subject. The Minister is left with 13 minutes to explain the details of how this wickedness is to operate. He cannot

even do that. He sits down in deadly silence. It is the biggest indictment of ignorance, alongside incompetence, that we have seen in the House this Session.

Mr. Henry McLeish: I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) made the point that this is an extraordinary response to what is a crisis in Scotland for our tenants. I am sure that the Minister will face numerous problems in relation to housing benefit, especially as it will have an impact on the housing departments throughout Scotland. One of the crucial issues that we face is that, because of changes in social security and reductions in housing benefit, many of my constituents will be unable to pay their rent.
What guidance will the Minister give to local authorities which may have hundreds of tenants unable to pay their rent? Will the Minister consider a non-eviction policy emanating from St. Andrew's house? Clearly, many people are on the breadline.They will not be able to pay rent or rates to the local authority. I am sure that the Minister is aware that I have had pensioners and people on low incomes, in tears at my surgeries. It is a horrific experience to see people, who have paid their taxes, rents and rates all their lives now in the invidious position of being worse than beggars with a bowl. They come to surgeries and they say, "What can we do? What can you do to help?"

Mr. Dewar: The Government are ignorant.

Mr. McLeish: We are left in the amazing position where we can only say that we will write to the Prime Minister and bring it to her attention. There are few constituents who can appreciate that a Government can be so mean, so vicious, so malicious and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) said from a sedentary position, so ignorant of the plight of hundreds of thousands of Scottish people. These people are on the breadline and they feel that this kick in the teeth over housing benefit is something that they cannot cope with.
Why has the Minister not answered some of these questions? Housing departments are looking for guidance and leadership. After what this Government have done to my constituents and many of my hon. Friends' constituents, we deserve answers. Sadly, they have not been forthcoming.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Decisions on the rents to be levied are wholly for the local authorities to take into account.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

The Motion having been made at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half past Ten o'clock.